


Mine

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Series: Wait For It [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Brat Barry, Communication Failure, D/s relationship, Established Relationship, M/M, Misunderstandings, Nerd Barry, Not Beta Read, Oliver Queen Being an Asshole, Protective Oliver, Secret Relationship, What Have I Done
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-02 01:42:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 44,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5229107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver laughs, “your roommates are talking about how hot I am,” he mumbles into Barry’s neck, placing a sloppy kiss there while he was at it. Barry listens closer to what his roommates were saying and he hears Iris talking about how Oliver was on her ‘three’ list, and even Cisco, who was in his words ‘mostly straight’, thought Oliver was hot. </p><p>“Oh my god they are,” he mumbles, flipping himself over and curling into Oliver’s chest, “this is so weird.” Mostly because he and Oliver had been sleeping together for months now, Barry wasn’t sure what to categorize their relationship as and with Ollie’s reputation he wasn’t sure he wanted to put a name in it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GoodSourceofFiber](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoodSourceofFiber/gifts).



> The song title is lovingly taken from Taylor Swift's Mine :)
> 
> So for all intents and purposes Barry and Oliver live in the same town, it isn't explicitly stated but I assume you can all make that connection lol.

You were in college working part time waiting tables  
Left a small town, never looked back  
I was a flight risk with a fear of fallin’  
Wondering why we bother with love if it never lasts

Taylor Swift, Mine

Barry could hear people talking outside his room but he was comfy and warm and he was spooning with a super-hot guy and this was everything he wanted out of life. Behind him Oliver laughs, “your roommates are talking about how hot I am,” he mumbles into Barry’s neck, placing a sloppy kiss there while he was at it. Barry listens closer to what his roommates were saying and he hears Iris talking about how Oliver was on her ‘three’ list, and even Cisco, who was in his words ‘mostly straight’, thought Oliver was hot.

“Oh my god they are,” he mumbles, flipping himself over and curling into Oliver’s chest, “this is so weird.” Mostly because he and Oliver had been sleeping together for months now, Barry wasn’t sure what to categorize their relationship as and with Ollie’s reputation he wasn’t sure he wanted to put a name in it.

“You should totally go out and join the conversation,” Oliver tells him, nosing at his hair and grinning.

“You are such a showboat,” he accuses but this was Oliver _Queen_ , that was just how things went with him.

“True, but you enjoy it,” he says and kisses Barry, “now go tell your friends how hot I am,” he says, nudging at Barry to go.

He does, but only because he wanted to see how this would play out, “you have a great ass,” Oliver tells him and he shakes it a little.

“Right?” he says and grins, carefully exiting his room, which sat off the kitchen his friends were currently chatting in. He quickly shuts the door before anyone could see in though logically they wouldn’t have been able to see in anyways. But still, Oliver was insistent that no one know and he didn’t want to push him in case he ran away.

“So what’re you hiding in your room?” Iris asks, wiggling her eyebrows. She full well knew he was seeing someone but he refused to give any details.

“Hentai,” he says flippantly and it’s totally worth it to see Iris make faces at him. Caitlin and Ronnie make faces too but Cisco shrugs and nods.

“Okay, ew. Back to a much more… attractive subject,” Iris says, “Oliver Queen, who you better agree is hot Barry, do you guy know that since he’s told me he was bi he has not once agreed with my taste in guys?” Iris says like this is a personal offense to her. To be fair Iris had shit taste in guys and Barry was mostly only interested in the one that was currently occupying his bed.

“Ehh,” Barry says, “he’s kind of a jerk, I mean he cheated on his girlfriend with her sister guys, that’s just not hot.” He even makes faces for effect even though Ollie had told him all about that, and his near death experience after that boat went down and how he wanted to not be an ass anymore. Plus it was fun to know that Oliver was in the next room listening to the whole thing. This was kind of their thing; the close calls and semi-private relationship that they didn’t make an effort to flaunt but didn’t make an effort to hide either. He thought Oliver got off on it, having people almost find out all the time, listening to Barry talk about him to other people like he didn’t know him at all. To be fair he was in the same boat and he hadn’t really thought he would enjoy something like this, something that wasn’t… personal, deep. He had always been the feeling type and a series of one night stands with some talking in between was not his type of thing at all but then along came Ollie.

“That was one time!” Iris protests, “and he totally isn’t a jerk anymore,” she says, “give the guy a chance.”

“Okay, and I know this might come as a shock, but he doesn’t have to be nice to be fuckable Barry, and he is very fuckable,” Cisco says, wiggling his eyebrows. God, Barry could practically _feel_ Oliver grinning in the bedroom.

“I would not have sex with Oliver Queen,” Caitlin says, raising her eyebrows in question at everyone.

“Okay but if Ronnie was okay-”

“Wouldn’t even hesitate,” Caitlin interrupts Cisco’s hypothetical question. Ronnie doesn’t even look offended by this knowledge and he nods, probably also interested in having sex with Oliver. Having been there Barry knew what they were missing and _god_ did he never want to live without it again, Oliver was _amazing_.

“I still think he’s kind of a jerk, I mean he’s okay looking, but his attitude just throws me off. Personally I think Tommy’s where it’s at,” he says, grinning because Oliver was going to be _so_ offended that he just told all his friends he preferred his best friend to him.

“That’s true,” Caitlin says, “Tommy is very cute, no offense honey,” she says and pats Ronnie’s arm when he gives her an offended look. Cisco wrinkles his nose and says Tommy isn’t his type and Iris shrugs, labeling Tommy as ‘ok’.

“You guys have no taste,” he tells them and grabs a bottle of water from the fridge, headed back to his room.

“Go put some actual clothes on and come join us,” Iris tells him and he makes a face.

“I like my heart boxers, also I have a particularly hard assignment to do so I can’t socialize,” he says and pouts for effect, Iris giving him pitying looks as he disappears back into his room to a waiting Oliver.

“You,” Oliver growls as he drags Barry back into bed, “had better not actually think Tommy is more attractive than me.”

Barry grins down at Oliver from his vantage point perched on his hips, “oh but I do,” he tells him, letting out a squeal as Oliver flips them over, pinning Barry underneath of him.

“Well then I guess I have to remind you why I’m the better option,” he says and nips at Barry’s bottom lip.

Barry nips back, “maybe you do,” he says.

*

Barry didn’t _hate_ his job per se, but he sure as hell didn’t like it very much. Rich people were rude, even though he was the fastest waiter the restaurant had, and they always acted really condescending. The one good thing out of this place was that he had met Ollie here and totally fucked in the bathroom, which none of his coworkers would believe but it was true. How that had turned into… whatever it was they had now he had no idea but he wasn’t going to complain. At least he didn’t have to deal with racism, poor Cisco had to deal with it all the time, and Caitlin kept having to reaffirm that she was not single to creepy old white men. Barry had to fend off the occasional creepy old lady but mostly he just had to deal with people thinking he should move faster than the speed of light to deliver their food. But that was impossible, obviously, not that rich people seemed to understand that.

He should have known that Oliver made an appearance after Cisco and Caitlin started freaking out but he’s distracted by annoying people being condescending. At least he got good tips because he always smiled no matter how rude people were, sometimes other rich people felt bad for him when they heard other people being assholes and he got a better tip. “Barry,” Cisco sys and he nearly drops the food he just picked up but he manages to keep his shit together, “look, Oliver Queen!” he says and points for all of two seconds before Caitlin smacks his hand down.

“Look,” Barry says in response, “the mayor!” he gestures to the mayor sitting in Cisco’s section and he wrinkles his nose.

“The mayor is an asshole,” he says, “and aw, he sat in your section. Why does he always sit in your section?” he asks. Because, not that Barry would tell them this, Oliver was intentionally doing it on purpose to annoy him or something.

“No idea,” Barry says instead of telling him the truth, “but I have to drop this food off.”

“I mean I know he’s on a date but like, Oliver doesn’t date so maybe we could like… sneak off to the bathroom or something,” Cisco says and wow, what an accurate Oliver move.

“That is…” exactly how they met, “totally plausible,” he says and runs off to deliver food to an old couple who was always really nice and gave him good tips. He drops the food off, asks about their dog that had been sick the week before, gets complimented on his memory and he rushes off to get menus.

He skids to a stop in front of Oliver and co, who was actually really pretty, “hey, my name is Barry and I’ll be your server tonight,” he says and drops menus in front of them.

Oliver frowns, “I know who you are Barry, I come here enough.”

Barry sighs, “Look, I get it, it’s annoying, but if I don’t say it I get yelled at and I’m not in the business of being fired, okay? Drinks?” He takes their drink orders and runs off again, noting a few tables that needed new drinks or looked like they were almost finished.

“I have no idea how you always move so fast,” Caitlin tells him, “I get exhausted looking at you.” Cisco nods in agreement but frankly Barry doesn’t know how he does it either so he couldn’t give up his secrets.

He treats Oliver and co attentively, almost giving them more attention than the rest of the customers and he can see that it irritates Oliver because this wasn’t how the game was supposed to go. But Barry liked to make his own rules and pissing Oliver off is fun, also it led to fun. Cisco and Caitlin were still fan girling in the kitchen, harassing him for details of Oliver’s meal, which basically consisted of him telling them he seemed to like the food. He’s sent on break, which mostly consists of him consuming as much food as humanly possible in a short time span, when Oliver shows up around back presumably to annoy him. “Hey,” he says around a mouth full of… something that Cisco threw on a plate, which in hind sight probably wasn’t something he wanted to eat.

Oliver smiles slowly at him, regarding him almost as if he was prey, “I hope this isn’t weird for you,” he says, “You know, the whole ‘date’ thing?”

Barry shrugs, “it’s not weird at all, I have a date after work,” he says even though that’s kind of a lie. He was meeting someone but not for a date, Felicity has always been and will always be just a friend but it was fun to let Oliver think otherwise.

Oliver snorts, “No you don’t,” he says with enough confidence that Barry almost feels offended but he figures this is just part of the game.

“Sure I do, it isn’t like I spend all my free time with you, you know,” he says, grinning at the way Oliver clenches his jaw.

“Really? Well then just who do you plan on going out with?” he asks, tilting his head to the side.

Barry shrugs, “pretty blonde from class, cute, a little awkward but not in a creepy way, smart, fun to be around if you know what I mean,” he says casually, like this sort of thing happened all the time. It most certainly did not, he was far too awkward for his own good and most of his sexual repertoire came from Oliver, not that he’d ever tell Oliver that. He was content to let Oliver believe that he was a fling that Barry was most certainly not attached to.

“Right. Cancel your date,” he says and Barry laughs.

“Oh no, you get dates, I get dates, that’s just how this works,” he says. He full well knew that Oliver wasn’t interested in whomever he was having dinner with; he spent far too much time following Barry with his eyes to be even remotely interested in his date but still. It was the principal of the thing.

“Our parents pretty much forced us to have dinner together, this hardly counts as a date,” Oliver tell him, raising an eyebrow, fully expecting Barry to comply to the rules he just set in place.

But Barry doesn’t do rules, not with Oliver, “and yet you let me believe it was a date,” he says and pouts, “I’m just scorned enough to ignore you,” he says and gets up, fully intending to go back to go back to work and continue acting as if he had no idea he knew Oliver.

Oliver, though, has other plans, and he blocks Barry’s path, “you don’t have a date,” Oliver tells him.

Barry snickers, “if you liked it you should have out a ring on it,” he sing songs and ducks around Oliver to back to work.

*

Oliver was so annoyed for the rest of the date and Barry made sure to be extra sweet just to add salt to the wound. He got a nice tip though, and really, that was all he cared about. Well, that and that Oliver wasn’t actually on a date but even if he was Barry would have put up a good front and acted unaffected. That was what this was after all, some weird, no-strings attached game that he ended up caught up in with Oliver somehow. Only he was kind of attached, it was just who he was as a person to develop emotional connections, and he didn’t know what to do with that. So he mimicked Oliver’s blasé behavior and pretended he didn’t care even as their relationship started to bleed more and more into his personal life. Iris would probably kick his ass if she knew about this, she might even kick _Oliver’s_ ass if she knew about this and he knew very well what she thought of Ollie’s ass. It was better without pants, actually, and he was excited that he had that knowledge and his friends didn’t.

By the time he’s done his shift Oliver was long gone and he was running late for his ‘date’. It wasn’t really a date; he was meeting Felicity so they could study together in a bar they both liked, which basically meant that they were going to talk for like three plus hours with their text books open in front of them. But still, it was fun to let Oliver simmer for a while, maybe next time he wouldn’t let Barry do the same thing while he _served_ him and his date. Pay back’s a bitch, as the saying goes.

He meets Felicity a few minutes late but she’s learned to expect this because it was just who he is as a person or at least that’s what he liked to tell people. “Hey,” she says and they hug, “you’re not even that late!” she says, smiling at him.

“Caitlin gave me a ride,” he says. Lucky her, she had a car, well, Ronnie’s car but still she had a ride and the rest of them had to rot on public transportation. Cisco had a creepy old guy fall asleep on him the other day and his poor coat smelled like cat pee until he got around to washing it the next day.

“That explains it,” she says, “please tell me you remembered your books this time,” she says and Barry pretends to look like he’s just remembered that he left his texts on the table at home and Felicity groans, “not again,” she says.

Barry laughs, “kidding, I triple checked before I left for work, I have all my stuff.” Not that he was going to actually look at it for more than four seconds before giving up on it and getting drunk with Felicity.

“Oh thank god, it’s so awkward to sit around by myself while I wait for you to come back,” she says, “so what’s new? Are you dating anyone? Cisco text me that you’re dating someone but you aren’t telling him anything. I would like to tell you that I am a safe space and I won’t tell anyone anything, not even Cisco. Unless you’re in trouble, then your safety takes precedence but hopefully you’re fine,” she says, waving her hands around.

Barry sighs; of course Cisco would harass Felicity, whom he had assumed was the person he was seeing but Barry had insisted that he was not dating Felicity. They kissed once, it was weird, and they never did it again because no. “I’m fine, Felicity, and I’m not seeing anyone, not really. It’s weird, mostly a lot of one night stands with a few conversations sprinkled on top? I don’t know, just don’t tell Cisco because then he’ll tell Caitlin, who will tell Iris and Ronnie and then it’ll be a big mess that I don’t want to deal with,” he says.

Felicity gives him a sympathetic look as they sit down, “are you sure? One night stands don’t really seem like you, you like the emotional connection and all that,” she says.

Well, she wasn’t wrong, “I’m fine,” he insists and she lets it go, content to look at the drink menu even though they probably knew the thing off by heart by now. They take out their books as a formality even though they both know the most they will do is spill a drink on one of them, maybe, if the books even get that close to them.

Barry is happily sipping his first drink when he spots Oliver walking in out of the corner of his eye and he chooses to ignore the look he gets, swapping drinks with Felicity instead, making the action look far more intimate than it was just for Oliver’s benefit. He can feel Oliver’s eyes on him, watching as he takes a drink from Felicity’s glass and he hands the drink back, retrieving his own while he was at it. If Felicity notices a change in his attitude she doesn’t say anything about it, happily chatting away about some program she was making while Barry listened intently, smiling and nodding along like what she was saying was the most interesting thing in the world. He feels his phone buzz but he chooses to leave Oliver in purgatory for a little while longer, just to make him suffer a little more. Served him right, after all. Plus Felicity’s program actually was really interesting and he was genuinely paying attention to her words.

“So okay, that’s what I’ve been doing, what are you up to?” she asks. If he was in the habit of telling the truth he’d tell her about his and Oliver’s weird game in which they taunted one another for kicks even though they both full well knew Oliver was running the show, how he enjoyed it far more than he thought he would.

But he wasn’t in the habit of telling the truth these days, “oh not much,” he says, “mostly just school, work, hanging out with friends and ugh,” he debates on it and figures fuck it, it wasn’t like he was actually telling Felicity anything specific, “and my serial one night stands.”

Felicity nods, “sounds like fun. Are you sure you’re okay with the one night stand thing? I know how sensitive you can be, not that there’s anything wrong with that,” she throws out when he looks somewhat offended.

“I’m _fine_ Felicity, its new is all and I’m just adjusting but trust me, I’m okay and things are great. Except for school work, I am so tired of essays and I have like three labs due and two thousand works on decomposition to write,” he says and wrinkles his nose.

Felicity laughs, “wow, that is way worse than my computer science homework,” she says, “seriously, decomposition? Eww.”

“It’s not that bad,” he says, defending his work, “I’m pretty used to all the gruesome stuff by now.” He grins at her and leans forward, catching Oliver’s attention again. “It’s interesting, how everything works, but I’m kind of a science nerd so,” he shrugs and ducks his head a bit like he was embarrassed.

Oliver, apparently, has enough scoping them out at that point and decides to come over, presumably to be an ass if Barry let him, which he would not. He watches as Oliver catches sight of Felicity’s face and his expression changes from one of vague anger to one of surprise, “Felicity?” he asks and Felicity perks up.

“Oliver, hey, I didn’t see you come in,” she says, grinning at him.

“Wait, you guys know each other?” Barry asks and thank god Felicity seems to assume he found that surprising because she knew Oliver Queen, not because _he_ knew Oliver Queen.

“Yeah, I work for Queen Consolidated, remember?” she says and raises an eyebrow. Shit, right, that was true but still, she knew Oliver? He was the CEO’s kid, that didn’t mean he’d talk to Felicity, who worked a low level position in the IT department.

“What’re you up to?” Oliver asks Felicity in an overly nice tone, clearly far too interested in her answer than he should be.

Felicity, as sweet as she was, didn’t seem to notice Oliver’s interest, “not much, doing homework with Barry, who has some truly disgusting assignments,” she says, grinning.

Oliver raises his eyebrows, “homework?” he asks, glancing back and forth between her and Barry.

“Yes Oliver, homework, some of us actually have to do that to pass classes,” Felicity says, teasing tone despite the harsh words.

“I do my homework,” Oliver says, offended she suggested otherwise. Barry barely keeps from snorting because he knew that Oliver did not do his homework, he regularly blew it off to go do… whatever with Barry.

“Sure Oliver, when’s the last time you got anything done?” Felicity asks, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

“Like last week,” he says, “and I got a ninety on it,” he says proudly and Barry remembers that, he helped Oliver with it because it was a science-based course and Oliver had been having trouble with the concepts so Barry had tried his best to explain some things. Apparently he did a good job if Oliver’s mark was a reflection of his teaching skills.

“Total fluke,” Felicity says, smiling at Oliver.

“I’m offended Felicity, I thought you had faith. Anyways I have to go and do homework, that’s right, _homework_ , Felicity,” he tells her, smiling before he turns away and walks out the door he came in.

“How long have you two been friends?” he asks as soon as Oliver is out of earshot.

Felicity snorts, “he’s not as interesting as he sounds,” she says, “mostly he has a lot of computer problems and he tries to charm his way out of everything. Definitely not as fun as everyone likes to make him out to be.”

Oh Felicity didn’t even know the half of it, Oliver was _definitely_ as fun as everyone made him out to be, he’d swear on the bible. “Sounds boring,” he says even though he knew that was the farthest thing from the truth.

His phone buzzes again and he checks it, finding a text from Oliver.

_Good boy_.

It probably shouldn’t cause a warm flush of happiness but it does and he can feel his face flush a little, blushing slightly at the comment. 


	2. Seventy Percent Legs

We need love, but all we want is danger

We team up then switch sides like a record changer

The rumors are terrible and cruel

But, honey, most of them are true

Taylor Swift, New Romantics

Barry stretches luxuriously across Oliver’s bed, sinking deep into the squishy mattress, “god this feels amazing,” he says, moaning into the memory foam face down.

“Yeah?” Oliver says and runs his hand up Barry’s leg, kneading at the muscles there.

“Mmm yeah,” he says, soaking up Oliver’s attention, “you have a great bed.” It was the first time Oliver had brought him to his house rather than staying at Barry’s place, probably because Cisco was running experiments with Caitlin in the kitchen again and the smell was unbearable. Iris was going to be pissed, she made a rule about no experiments in the house after Cisco and Caitlin did something to the stove and nearly blew them all up due to a miscalculation.

“You have a great bod,” Oliver says, “wouldn’t mind keeping you in my bed for a while.” He moves on to the other leg, kneading gently at Barry’s calve.

“Yeah?” Barry mumbles, “Keep giving me this special treatment and you’ll have to beat me off with a stick,” he says, grinning over his shoulder at Ollie.

“Not exactly what I think of when I think of beating you off,” Oliver tells him, smiling softly down at him. Barry laughs quietly but chooses to focus on Oliver’s hands moving over his body, pulling knots out of muscles he didn’t even know he had. This was something of a new experience, after-sex massage, and Barry wasn’t about to complain about it because this just might be the best experience of his life.

“You okay?” Oliver asks, gently straddling his hips to massage his back, “you seem stressed.”

Barry snorts, “S’what happens when exams start coming up,” he says, “but this is helping lots, please continue,” he says and laughs softly.

Oliver laughs, “true. Speaking of exams can you help me study for one? You are way better at science than me, I’m pretty sure I’ll never forget the last science lesson I got from you. If you could avoid giving me an awkward boner in the middle of the exam that’d be greatly appreciated though,” he says.

“Sure, but I am not going to guarantee that you won’t get an awkward boner,” Barry tells him, earning a swat on the ass, “oww. You did this to yourself,” he complains and earns another swat.

“You told me you had a date with _Felicity_ ,” he says, “that was a lie.” His hands pause over Barry’s shoulder blades until Barry looks up at him over his shoulder, “care to explain?”

“Not really,” he says and Oliver gives him a _look_ , “fine Mr. Grumpy Pants, I was giving you a taste of your own medicine. Don’t like it don’t do it,” he says.

He can feel Oliver’s gaze on him, regarding him carefully, “fine,” he says and leans closer, “No. Dates.”

Barry snickers, “it this your way of telling me we’re exclusive?” he says, only half joking.

“ _Barry_ ,” Oliver says in his warning tone.

“Fine, fine, no dates, but you have to follow your own rules,” he says and he’s more than a little surprised when Oliver tells him that won’t be a problem. Oliver wasn’t exactly the domestic type and he was fine with that, but this was a pleasant surprise and he figured he’d take what he could get even if that was a little selfish of him.

*

Oliver had never been good with emotions, when he was younger he partied too much, broke Laurel’s heart, and Sarah’s for that matter, and he was entirely a selfish asshole. Then that boat crash happened and he’d been stranded for a week on some island and he thought he was going to die there, it was a miracle he had even survived let alone been found. So he had made an effort to change his life, managed to make up to poor Laurel, who’d been raw from his betrayal, went back to school not that he was much good at it, and made some new friends, even started that club with Tommy. Then along came Barry and the guy threw him for a loop because he was all smiles and blush and no matter what mood Oliver was in Barry always seemed to act as a ray of sunshine in his life. Fucking _sunshine_ , he compared Barry to _sunshine_. It was embarrassing just to think no matter how true it was and he hadn’t known what to do with that.

He knew very well that he had a reputation and he had more than earned it so when Barry believed it he was stuck. Sure, he’d _tried_ to tell Barry he wasn’t like that anymore but Barry didn’t catch on, or maybe he didn’t care. No, Barry cared about everything, once he almost got himself run over when a cat ran into the traffic and he ran off to rescue it. But Barry seemed content not to look too hard at Oliver Queen and he was okay with that so long as Barry didn’t go anywhere.

It helped that Barry knew how to play games well; he knew he had a difficult attention span to catch let alone keep and Barry always seemed to keep him guessing. He wasn’t anything like Laurel, who was great, really, but she was stable, reliable, detail oriented, and plan focused. It wasn’t like Barry lacked those attributes, he had most of them, but he used them in totally different ways and his intelligence was different from Laurel’s. Laurel had tried to tame him, make him more respectable and frankly he more than needed it but it hadn’t worked very well in anyone’s favor. Barry chose to challenge Oliver at his own games and he almost always came out on top, in some very literal ways, choosing to work with Oliver’s short attentions rather than against it and it made all the difference.

Even with the near-death experience it was difficult to focus sometimes, and other times he had no issue at all. Like his inability to make it through even one full business class without falling asleep versus his hyper focus on things he actually enjoyed doing or felt were important, like his family, the club, his friends, Barry. He already had a successful business, why did he need to take a class on it? The other things though, they never got old, boring, predictable, and even if they did he still cared about them. Business class? Not so much.

Barry seemed to understand this, work with it, toy with it. It was fun, playing games with Barry, seeing who won, when they drew even, the push and pull. Then his dumbass had to go and get emotionally invested and Barry damn near gave him a heart attack with that date thing. Oliver wasn’t a moron, he knew he had nothing to offer Barry, not really, he was broken, emotionally stunted, had a reputation that was all too true, he wasn’t smart, not like Barry, or Laurel. There wasn’t much there for Barry to love and when he said he had a date Oliver kind of panicked until he realized Barry was playing a game, though his finding out about Felicity had been a total fluke. He had only been at that particular bar because Felicity recommended it and he figured he wouldn’t run into Barry there. That had been simultaneously shitty and fantastic considering he figured out that Barry was not actually interested in moving on quite yet, just in tormenting Oliver, though the initial panic wasn’t fun.

Then there was the odd way their relationship worked, it was almost like Oliver was in the lead, but they both knew Barry was the one with the control and he so insisted on being such a _brat_. Despite Oliver’s attempts to curb the behavior Barry insisted on breaking all the rules just to see what Oliver would do. Most times Oliver would come up with some creative punishment that Barry no doubt figured out how to use to his advantage just to rile Oliver up again and so the cycle continued. It was hot, surprisingly so, and something Laurel would have never done in a million years. She was far better suited to Tommy, who tended toward the more vanilla side himself, than Oliver, who was forever experimenting with something.

And oh, he’d worried about that too, that Barry was just some experiment he’d get bored with but then Barry agrees to the ‘no date’ thing and Oliver barely manages to hold in his glee, suppressing it and instead acting blasé about the whole thing. Like he didn’t care if it ended two seconds from now even though that was a total lie. Barry doesn’t notice and continues to be pliable under Oliver’s hands, so responsive to touch; making all these small noises of happiness that urged Oliver on in an almost compulsive way. Usually he didn’t get much pleasure from his lover’s pleasure but with Barry it was like Barry’s pleasure was his own and _oh_ how he wanted Barry to feel good. Judging from Barry’s responses he was more than happy with their arrangement, almost purring in contentment with Oliver’s hands working the muscles in his shoulders. He swore if it was possible for Barry to melt into the bed he probably would have by now.

“ _God_ your hands are probably the best thing that have ever happened to me,” Barry mumbles, grinning into the blankets. Oliver knows he isn’t serious, that he’s just mumbling things he doesn’t mean but it encourages him to knead harder and Barry responds with such a pretty noise, letting out a low moan into his mattress.

“Yeah?” he says and laughs as Barry lets out another moan, eyelids fluttering shut as he smiles wide as per usual. Barry had such a nice smile, he had nice teeth and his eyes crinkled at the corners, no matter how fake his smiles might have been at work they always looked genuine, always reaching his eyes.

“Mmm, you’re amazing,” he says, “Everyone should have an Oliver Queen.”

“Really? But then I wouldn’t be all that special,” he says though he didn’t really think he was all that special now.

“True,” Barry mumbles, “I think I’d rather keep you to myself.” He knows that Barry means nothing by it but he can’t help but feel happy about it anyways, feel for a moment that he was wanted even if it was only because Barry had made some offhand comment he didn’t even mean. But Barry had that aura about him, he always made the people around him feel wanted, which was why everyone seemed to love him, and what had drawn Oliver to him in the first place. He had known Barry was different right away and he had been feeling trapped, stuck under his place as ‘Oliver Queen, son of the CEO of Queen Consolidated, Rich Boy’ and a half a dozen other expectations of him that he either couldn’t meet or met all too much. Barry was something new, different, someone who wasn’t from his world and would have no expectations of him for a night. But then one time turned into two, into three, into something that happened regularly before he was even aware that it was happening and the next thing he knew he had fallen head over heels in love with Barry.

Barry, on the other hand, had not broken the hasty terms of their agreement and so now he was in this weird limbo in which he has pretending not to care in hopes that Barry didn’t notice and run off. Barry was, after all, known for being very fast despite always being inexplicably late to everything. Once he’s finished with pampering Barry he stretches his limbs and curls up next to Oliver. He never used to be a very cuddly person but Barry hadn’t given him much of a choice and besides, it was kind of pleasant and he was a little pissed off he’s been missing out. He talked to Laurel about it once but it turned out she wasn’t the cuddling type either and then they ended up talking about Tommy’s bad habits of clinging to the nearest person when drunk and how annoying it was. They both decided they loved him anyways, even when he was breathing whisky breath directly into their poor noses.  

“What’s the meanest thing you’ve ever done to someone?” he asks for lack of a better subject, “when I was little I didn’t really like Thea much so I locked her in our dog’s kennel for like an hour. When my parents found her I blamed it on Tommy and they totally believed me and it took him years to gain their trust back,” he says, “and that’s the meanest thing I’ve ever done to someone aside from, you know, sleeping with Laurel’s sister but you already knew about that.”

Barry smacks his arm, “Oliver! That’s so mean, poor Thea! The meanest thing I ever did was convince this kid that you were supposed to pronounce the J in jalapenos and for like two years he believed me but like who says jalapenos on a regular basis? Anyways he said it wrong one day and everyone made fun of him for like a month because he fought them on it and when he said I was the one who told him that’s how it was pronounced I denied it. Everyone believed me because I was the ‘smart’ kid,” he says, “I kind of feel bad for him now, mostly because literally everyone remembers him as jalapeno, someone even changed his name in the yearbook in high school and this happened in like grade three.”

Oliver seems to be gauging whether or not he was serious before realizing that yes, Barry was dead serious. “That is the most innocent thing I’ve ever heard,” he says and starts laughing, “you know that cinnamon roll meme? You’re a cinnamon roll.”

“I am not a cinnamon roll! I’ll have you know I’ve been involved in some very mean things!” he says even though it was only half true, all the plans were Iris’ but still. He was involved, it counted, like that time they put that particularly smelly science experiment in Jason’s locker after he made a rude comment to Iris.

“Fine,” Oliver says, “what’s the meanest thing you’ve done to someone with Iris?” he asks, accurately guessing who he would have made plans with.

“Okay so this one time this guy kept hitting on Iris and he wouldn’t back off and it isn’t like I could beat the guy up, Iris beat up all my bullies, so we figured hey, I’m smart. We’ll figure something out. Anyways to make a long story short we convinced the whole school he shit in the locker room showers and everyone called him shower shitter for the rest of high school. No one changed his name in the year book though so at least there was that, I probably would have apologized but Iris told me not to and I find it best to listen to Iris,” he says and wow, he was a cinnamon roll. That was tame compared to even the less mean stuff Oliver did in high school, he was an absolute asshole.

“I kind of want the long version of that story,” Oliver says, grinning at him.

“Science experiment gone wrong in the showers and high school students will believe anything,” Barry says, “but I’m sure you were _way_ meaner than me in school.”            

He wasn’t wrong but Oliver pretends to be offended just to make Barry try to win back his love, not that he had to try very hard, he won it back with a few kisses and a promise of more.

*

 Oliver didn’t much pay attention to who went in and out of the club minus drug dealers, whom were removed immediately and despite their insistence his business did fine without them. That was probably why he hadn’t noted Iris, and if he had he would have known Barry was bound to be close by because the two were basically attached at the hip. “Dude!” Tommy yells and points to someone across the room, “that guy is like seventy percent legs!”

Oliver looks over and finds Iris trying to drag Barry onto the dance floor while Barry resisted, looking embarrassed. “I’m not gay but-”

“Tommy I’m going to stop you right there, just accept that sometimes you’re attracted to guys, it’s okay,” Oliver says, patting his friend’s shoulder.

“Don’t push your gay agenda on me,” Tommy says, feigning outrage.

“I’m bisexual,” Oliver corrects.

“Fine, don’t push your bisexual agenda on me!” Tommy makes faces at him but they both know he doesn’t care; it’d be kind of hypocritical if he did considering he was the one who kissed Oliver and made him question his sexuality. Granted they were both gross drunk fifteen year olds with no idea what they were doing and they didn’t talk about it again until they were in their mid- twenties after Oliver had ‘died’ in that boat wreak and he slept with Laurel out of grief. Oliver figured a drunken kiss as teens was pretty tame in comparison to that so he had brought it up and Tommy had had a small freak out in reference to his own sexuality. This was no thanks to his father, whom Tommy had always been worried about disappointing until recently, but he hadn’t given a damn about Oliver. Now he just made a lot of ‘going both ways’ jokes because if nothing else Tommy was great at deflecting problems with jokes. Oliver wished he’d just face the facts instead of making a lame joke and changing the subject but Tommy would learn eventually, and Oliver secretly enjoyed the ‘both ways’ jokes about his sexuality though he told Tommy otherwise. He had a reputation to keep up after all.

“You should go talk to him, he’s your type!” Tommy says, looking like he just got a million dollar idea and Oliver takes his drink away. When Tommy decided Oliver hitting on people was a million dollar idea he was too drunk and someone had to make sure Laurel didn’t throw him in the dog house. He’d spent enough time with Laurel to know what she did and didn’t like and he figured he’d use his expertise for good and help Tommy out a little. Unless it was birthday presents, then Laurel would know and Tommy would be stuck in the dog house and Oliver was not going to be responsible for that.

“You don’t know my type,” he says, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

“Leggy brunettes are your type, go talk to seventy percent legs!” Tommy yells, prodding him forward, “seriously, Oliver, if you don’t I will. Wait, I’m dating Laurel, she’ll kick my ass and trust me, you got a little pity from her because you almost died in that boat wreak, if you came back unscathed she’d’ve killed you, man. And I mean you kind of would have deserved it but still. I learned a lesson that day; do not fuck with Laurel Lance. Go talk to Legs,” Tommy says and prods him forward again.

Barry finally spots him and looks ten times more embarrassed and Iris follows his gaze, eye widening when she realized he was watching. She glances back and forth between the two and prods Barry forward the same way Tommy had been trying to prod them together. “See? His friend is totally on my side!” Tommy yells excitedly, “and come on, I can practically _feel_ your sexual tension from here man, put me out of my misery and just fuck the guy. He’s seventy percent _legs_ Oliver.” He was starting to wonder if Tommy was confusing his type with Oliver’s type and he had just happened to have guessed right here.

“Tommy, relax, if I didn’t know any better I’d say _you_ were interested,” he says and gives Tommy a judgmental look he really didn’t have a right to be giving, but he wasn’t about to let Tommy get any ideas about Barry. He got Laurel and that was more than enough people Oliver has dated for Tommy, thanks, he was not about to get Barry too. Not that they were dating. But still, it was the principal of the thing.

“You’re going to regret this,” Tommy sing songs and sets off towards Barry and really, what choice did Oliver have but to follow and make sure Tommy didn’t do something stupid?

“ _Dude_ ,” Tommy says when he gets to Barry, “you’re like seventy percent legs!” he says excitedly.

And there goes his opportunity to stop Tommy for doing something stupid. But Barry, as usual, grins widely, “thanks!” he says, matching Tommy’s excitement, “my goal is to become one hundred percent legs!” Well, Oliver thinks, at least Tommy wasn’t the only drunk guy saying stupid shit. Iris looks like she wants the universe to swallow her whole and Barry is completely oblivious to her plight.

“One hundred percent legs?” he asks, giving Barry a judgy look. Iris was plotting escape methods, looking around for the fastest way out.

“Mmhm,” Barry says, nodding happily and probably prepared to say something else stupid but Iris drags him off before he can do something dumb.

*

“You had an opportunity and you squandered it!” Iris yells over the music, “I am so mad at you Barry!” He wasn’t paying much attention because he was a little drunk and feeling pleasant and for once his mind was not consumed with Oliver fucking Queen. A little literal on the fucking thing.

“What opportunity did he squander?” Caitlin asks, dragging Ronnie and Cisco with her.

“Oliver Queen. Oliver _Queen_ guys,” she says and relays the ‘one hundred percent legs’ story. Cisco thinks he’s a comedic genius and Caitlin laughs, but also tells him that maybe he should have kept that to himself. Ronnie decides it’s best to stay out of the fray, preferring to keep any opinions he had to himself. Barry decides he doesn’t care, not even about Oliver’s judgy look when he said ‘one hundred percent legs’. He was getting pretty good at lying to himself these days anyways. 


	3. Good Boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured we'd take a break from Taylor Swift for this chapter's lyric lol. I made a break up playlist for the purposes of missing exes I don't even have and unsurprisingly it was comprised of mostly Taylor and it has been the current muse of this project so, lyrics explained. Not that y'all care lol.

This is how to be a heartbreaker  
Boys they like a little danger  
We'll get him falling for a stranger, a player  
Singing I lo-lo-love you

How to be a Heartbreaker, Marina and the Diamonds

He swore Oliver left the damn hickeys on his neck on purpose as some weird attempt to mark his territory but Barry wasn’t playing that game and it was finally cold enough that he could wear all the infinity scarves he stole from Caitlin and Iris, and that one red one he stole from Ronnie. No one suspected a thing and it was brilliant, even more so because it irritated Oliver. He did, however, have a bunch of labs and a paper to do though so he was in the library pretending to do things while he waited for the rest of the gang to show up so they could all pretend to do things together with pizza. He sees Oliver, Tommy, and Laurel come in though he was pretty sure only Oliver and Tommy actually went to school there, but he decides to ignore them. He can feel Oliver watching him too, and instead he turns his focus to his labs just to annoy him. Also he needed to get his labs done, they were all due at the end of the week.

His efforts to piss Oliver off are effective too; he manages to work through two out of three labs out of sheer spite. Oliver, he decides, is a fantastic motivator and he should do this more often because he was so much more productive when he was purposely ignoring his lover. His phone buzzes and he’s tempted to ignore it just to make Ollie suffer a little more but he decides to throw him a bone instead and check his text.

_Take the scarf off_

Barry snorts and puts the phone back in his pocket, blowing off Oliver’s command because he did what he wanted. Also it was so worth the look on Oliver’s face as they made eye contact over Barry’s laptop. Barry grins at him and goes back to his work, pulling up his third lab so he could start documenting the information and analyzing it. That particular lab was more work than the other two he so he had left that one to do last when he probably should have done it first just to get the stupid thing over with. His phone buzzes again but he ignores it in favor of acknowledging Iris and the gang as they show up with pizza, ready to distract him from his homework. “Hey guys,” he says, grinning and reaching for the pizza box. Cisco reluctantly hands it over and Barry feels his phone buzz again, no doubt Oliver giving him more instructions he was supposed to follow.

“Hey Barry, give my scarf back,” Iris says, looking like she was prepared to pull the thing off his neck herself though she wouldn’t actually follow through.

Barry ignores her in favor of checking his phone, setting the pizza box down and finding both messages were from Oliver.

_Take. Off. The. Scarf._

_BARRY_

He figures fine, he’ll take the damn scarf off, but only because Iris wanted her scarf back, not at all because he had a strange urge to please Oliver. So he unwraps the scarf from his neck and hands it back to Iris with a sassy look.

Instead of focusing on the scarf they all hone in on his neck, which looks rather abused presently, and Cisco grins, “nice!” Iris takes her scarf back and gives him judgy looks, which he totally did not deserve because she was dating her father’s partner and she wasn’t planning on telling him any time soon so. Caitlin and Ronnie decide that this was an opportunity to give him a sex ed lesson until he points out that he did indeed have a comprehensive sex education, thank you. Oliver was a damn good teacher too, ten out of ten, he would recommend. His phone buzzes and he finds another text from Oliver.

_Good boy_

He gets that flushed happy feeling he had gotten from the phrase the first time he read it but unlike Felicity his reaction wasn’t lost on his friends, who all insisted he give a million and one details on his new-found sex life. He didn’t, of course, because that would mean admitting who he was sleeping with and that was out of the question. That didn’t stop them from grilling him on it, demanding details he was not prepared to offer and eventually he managed to side-step questions for the time being and get them all focused on their work. Caitlin, Ronnie, and Cisco were a group for some engineering project, Iris had some story to write for a journalism class she was in, and Barry still had one lab and an essay to do. At least he got props for doing so much work while they picked up the pizza, and then he got grilled on that too because they all somehow attributed his speed in getting the assignments done to his sex life. They were right, but still, under normal circumstances that was a ridiculous conclusion.

Still, he refuses to give up details just to leave them all in suspense. Everyone gets their things out, save for Barry, who was already set up, and he feels his phone buzz with another text while Cisco opens the pizza box. He takes a deep sniff and his phone buzzes again, no doubt Oliver because everyone else who would text him is currently sitting at the table with him.

_No pizza._

_I mean it._

Barry would complain but when he looks over his laptop at Oliver the look on his face is so worth not eating the pizza. Cisco offers him some but he turns it down, changing the subject quickly before someone started asking questions he didn’t feel like answering. He has no doubt his friends are suspicious but he leaves them wondering instead of dealing with things like he probably should. His phone buzzes again.

_Good boy_

He looks over at Oliver, who smiles at him and that warm feeling returns and Barry gets the distinct impression that he’ll listen to Oliver more now, rather enjoying the feeling he got when he did.

*

Oliver wasn’t having a very good day, Barry could tell because he’d been distracted, even the night before. Today, though, it was worse so Barry crawls up to where Oliver was sitting at the edge of his bed and wraps his arms around his waist, “what’s wrong?” he asks, perching his head on Oliver’s shoulder.

Oliver nudges Barry’s cheek with his own, “just having a bad day,” he says quietly.

“Wanna talk about it?” he asks, nosing at Oliver’s cheek and jaw line.

Oliver sighs, “no, not really,” he says, turning a bit so he was half facing Barry, “distract me?” he asks and Barry has the perfect idea.

“Get dressed,” he tells Oliver, who looks confused because he know doubt meant for Barry to distract him with sex but Barry had better ideas.

Instead he drags him back to his place and up the set of stairs that lead to the second floor that held Caitlin, Cisco, and Iris’s rooms and the not-so-secret hideout that they all used semi frequently. He pulls Oliver over to the door that sat between Cisco and Caitlin’s room; something Oliver had probably mistook for a closet, and pulls him up another set of stairs to the small room that no one used because it might as well be a closet. Instead they had strung up a bunch of lights and covered the small surface area of the room with a bunch of pillows and blankets so they could veg out on the floor and watch movies all day, stress free. Or at least mostly stress free until they went back down stairs and faced their problems like the adults they supposedly were.

“What is this?” Oliver asks, looking around at the movie lined walls and dim lighting.

“We call it the batcave,” he says, grinning.

Oliver wrinkles his nose, “Bruce Wayne? Really, and here I thought you had taste in handsome CEO’s,” he says.

“First, you’re the kid, not the boss, and second, Bruce Wayne’s obsession with bats, while weird, has led to some pretty cool stuff. Now get over here and tell me what kind of movies you like,” he says. Oliver complies, awkwardly moving through the room trying not to step on things, which was hilarious because the floor was covered. He eventually finds a spot to sit on the makeshift couch make out of cushions they had taken off the furniture that used to be in the house before it was replaced with newer things.

They eventually settle on the Fast and Furious movies, which Barry was excited about because no one liked them and he was always stuck watching them on his own. He crawls back over to Oliver and he wraps his arm around him, drawing him in close and Barry goes willingly, curling into Oliver’s side. Oliver kisses the top of his head, nosing at his hair, “good boy,” he says and Barry melts under Oliver’s touch.

Oliver pulls Barry into his lap some twenty minutes through the movie and Barry remains pliable, letting Oliver maneuver him the way he wanted. When Oliver was done doing that Barry shifts some, earning a look from Ollie, and warps his arms around his waist. He pets Barry’s thighs, murmuring sweet nothings to him as they watched the movie and Barry’s pretty sure he ended up more relaxed by this than Ollie, which kind of sucked because the point was to distract Oliver not him.

“You okay?” he asks sometime later, only half paying attention because he felt float-y, safe, loved, even if he knew it was something of an illusion because his relationship with Oliver wasn’t real.

“Shhh,” Oliver whispers, “I’m fine, relax,” he says and Barry does, ignoring the movie in favor of paying attention to Oliver’s scent, his words, his touch. “Good boy,” Oliver whispers and he smiles as that warm feeling floods his system again and he lets Oliver take over, confident that he would do whatever needed to be done, whatever that was.

*

Oliver usually liked out-of-town trips but being out of town meant he couldn’t see Barry and he didn’t like that at all. Thankfully Thea and Tommy happened to have the same taste in food as him so they had beat Laurel out for where to go before Oliver and Thea left for Europe, which was why Barry was standing in front of him now full of smiles and kindness. Thea knew something was up immediately and Tommy recognized him as ‘ _legs_!’, which was embarrassing and also earned him an unimpressed look from Laurel. Oliver laughs at that, which Tommy looks personally offended at and really, it wasn’t like he could help laughing at his moron best friend getting in non-verbal shit from his ex-girlfriend. Some people might have considered it weird to have their best friend date their ex but honestly Tommy and Laurel were a much better match that he and Laurel ever were and he was happy for them.

“You guys should totally go on a date!” Thea says to Barry, gesturing to Oliver.

Barry takes it well, blushing lightly and laughing nervously, “ugh, I don’t really make an effort to date the patrons,” he says, giving Oliver a nervous glance. Oliver, despite desperately wanting to fling himself out of the plane he was going to be on tomorrow morning, doesn’t show a reaction.

“Well you should make an exception because I think you and Ollie would make a great match and don’t you look at me like that Oliver, I can feel the sexual tension from here,” she says, raising her eyebrows at him.

“Me too,” Laurel says, quickly jumping in, “and you’re totally Oliver’s type,” she says, grinning.

Poor Barry looks so confused as to what to do so Oliver sighs and takes the lead, “seriously guys? Trying to set me up with the poor waiter? I’m sure he has better things to do,” he says and Barry nods, running off before someone else can tell him he’d be a good match for Oliver.

Laurel and Thea then double team him, trying to convince him to go on a date with Barry and god, they had no idea. “Seriously,” Laurel says, “it’s been forever since you’ve dated. Forgive yourself, move on, be happy, if I can tell you you deserve that then you know it’s true,” she says meaningfully and it was sweet really. But none of them knew that he was seeing, as Tommy had nicknamed him, ‘seventy percent legs’, for months now and he was kind of in love with the guy and had no clue what to do about it.

“Thanks, but I think I’m fine,” he says, making a shit attempt to weasel out of his friend’s bugging.

“You’ve been so much happier lately though, more approachable, you should use it to your advantage and date!” Thea says excitedly, not knowing the irony of her words. Oliver had noticed being more approachable too given the uptake of people who hit on him rather than fleeing his presence but that was all Barry’s doing. Not that he was about to tell his friends that.

“ _Seventy percent legs_ ,” Tommy says with emphasis, leaning across the table too, as if Oliver didn’t get the point. He got the point; he’s had the pleasure of getting up close and personal with those legs. They were some great legs.

Laurel smacks Tommy’s arm, “for gods sakes Tommy, if I didn’t know any better I’d say _you_ wanted to date the guy considering you’ve been drooling over him more than Oliver and that’s just sad because Oliver has probably left a puddle in his own lap,” she says, giving Tommy looks.

Tommy looks offended, “never!” he says, placing his hand over his heart, “my heart belongs to you,” he says. Laurel looks appeased and returns her attentions to Thea so they could try to convince Oliver to date Barry.

“I’m leaving for a week, what’s the point?” he finally says because that was how he felt about their relationship in general right now but he wasn’t willing to let go.


	4. Surprises

What are you doing to me?  
I'm so into you  
And the hardest part is knowing  
That I'll never follow through

Trip, Hedley 

Barry expected their relationship to disintegrate the second Ollie left the country but instead he gets regular texts, instructions, and praise, which he probably shouldn’t enjoy as much as he does. He even gets regular Skype calls and Ollie always stayed on even when Barry fell asleep with his iPad on his face, which was adorable. Iris was getting suspicious as to who ‘8000 pissed off spiders’ was considering Oliver apparently had the same idea everyone else did and used a fake name on Skype. Barry’s name was ‘Actual Angry Beehive’, which Iris regularly made fun of. Once he almost did a Skype interview for a job before he realized that perhaps an interview with ‘Actual Angry Beehive’ wouldn’t go over very well.

Today, though, had not gone very well and Barry was upset because today was supposed to be a good day, “did things go that badly?” Oliver asks upon seeing his face on the screen. At least Skype was cooperating today and didn’t require them recreating phone commercials with ‘can you hear me now?’ for ten minutes.

Barry was upset and frankly a little irritated, “my bosses think I’m an actual child, one asked if I was in pre-school. First of all no pre-school child is as tall as me unless they’re some genetic anomaly or something,” he says.

Oliver keeps a straight face for all of five seconds, “oh my god Barry, _that’s_ what you chose to distinguish yourself from pre-school children? Height?” he asks.

“Well that’s an obvious indicator,” he says, “that’s a completely logical thing to pick out, don’t laugh Oliver, children are short. Also I don’t look anything like a child regardless of what the entire police station thinks.” He did _not_. Sure, he was young, but he wasn’t _that_ young and he did not appreciate being called a child because he lacked a giant beard like the other guy in the same placement. 

 “You are adorable,” Oliver tells him and Barry rolls his eyes, “what? You are, and you don’t look that young. You are, however, obviously a pile of dogs masquerading as a human because you’re probably the nicest and most optimistic person I’ve ever met,” he says and Barry blushes unintentionally.

“Well adorable is great but not exactly what I’m going for at work, Ollie, more like respectable not-child or actually-a-functioning-adult,” he says, frowning as he thought through the other possibilities.

Oliver laughs, “Barry you talk about how it takes you, Cisco, Iris, Caitlin, and Ronnie all together to make one fully functioning adult. Maybe you should lower your expectations,” he says and Barry is well and truly offended by Ollie’s suggestion.

“You locked Thea in a cage as a child, I don’t think I should take advice from you,” he says jokingly, raising an eyebrow at Oliver.

“It was one time and I felt really bad! She probably doesn’t even remember,” he says and Barry gives Oliver a judge-y look. In the end Oliver settles on asking Thea of she remembered and it turned out that she did and she was still mad about it, claiming that one day she’d do the same thing to Oliver.

“I don’t think I’d fit in a dog kennel but alright,” he says and Thea throws a pillow at him from the doorway, asking who he was talking to. Oliver makes some lame excuse and manages to shoo Thea away and she goes after throwing another pillow at his head. Barry was hurt but he keeps his feelings to himself out of fear of scaring Oliver off.

*

“We know you’re seeing someone,” Iris says, cornering him with Cisco and Caitlin in tow, all of them giving him stern looks.

“I am not,” he lies and wow, there wasn’t even any conviction in his voice, no wonder Cisco was looking at him like he was trying to convince him snow was actually green.

Iris points at his neck, which looks abused all over again with Oliver’s return, “I can have one night stands, you know,” he says and at least that’s kind of the truth.

Iris out right laughs though and ouch, offensive! “You don’t do one night stands, Barry, you’re too sensitive for that,” she says and he knows she’s trying to help but seriously, he was _not_ that ‘sensitive’.

“I am not that sensitive,” he insists, “I can do things, I’m not some emotional ball of fluff!”

Cisco frowns, “okay but like you are an emotional ball of fluff, not that it’s a bad thing,” he says when Barry gives him a look, “when we watch Disney moves it makes me feel better when I cry because at least I don’t snot as much as you,” he says and Caitlin smacks him, recognizing that that was not comforting.

“Who is it, Barry?” Caitlin says forcefully, hands on her hips and fully prepared to pry the answer out of him if she must.

Barry panics because they _know_ and he needs to do _something_ about this,” ugh, um, Queenie?” he says because it’s the best he can do on short notice.

Iris, Cisco, and Caitlin then start demanding details on ‘her’ and he just goes with it, offering up some stuff about Oliver while trying to figure out who the hell he could pass off as a datable person. The solution to his problem comes to him near the end of his being accosted by his friends and he texts Felicity.

_You gotta help me_

_Be my Queenie_

His texts, he knew, made no fucking sense and Felicity tells him this so he fills her in and all he has to do is make sure Cisco never meets her ever. Or Caitlin, he was pretty sure she knew Caitlin too, so basically it would only fool Iris but still. It was something. Felicity voices her worry and he tells her what he tells the rest of his friends, that he’s fine and that she had nothing to worry about.

*

Oliver was terribly distracting, his kisses were far more interesting than Barry’s clothing and he didn’t even care that he was late for class. “You should stay,” Oliver tells him, dragging him back into his lap and really, how was Barry supposed to resist that?

“I have to go to class,” Barry says and he means to pull away, he does, but Oliver was cute and his kisses were sweet and this was far more desirable than class.

“It’s _one_ class,” Oliver rationalizes, “you can miss one class without ruining your future,” he says, running his hands down Barry’s back. Class was important, and he was almost done him program, but _Oliver_. That was a really stupid reason to miss class and he knew it but Oliver was right, missing one class wasn’t going to screw him over, and he’s missed class for less, like that time he and Cisco went to Comicon.

“Fine, but you have to study for that exam you keep pretending doesn’t exist,” he says and Oliver makes a face.

“Barry, really? Can’t we like… do anything but that?” he asks but they both knew Barry had won and that Oliver was stuck receiving a science lesson from his quasi boyfriend.

It may have been cute that Oliver was so clearly clueless to the knowledge he was supposed to be studying if he hadn’t decided the solution was to bite Barry’s head off every five seconds. He was only human, he had so much patience and Oliver was starting to annoy him, “ok, obviously you aren’t getting this-”

“Look I’m trying okay-”

“And I’m trying to help,” Barry says, cutting Oliver off, “so what is it that you don’t understand?” he asks, sounding far more patient with Oliver than most people would at this point.

Oliver looks properly shamed and Barry is happy that at least he seemed to get that he was being an ass, “I don’t know,” he says, “at this point I’m so fucking confused that I don’t even know what I don’t know. Assume I know nothing.”

Which yeah, from Barry’s experience Oliver was basically a baby considering his absolute lack of knowledge. “Okay, so let’s start at the beginning,” he says and he starts explaining basic concepts Oliver probably should have learned in high school but really, Oliver probably hadn’t paid much attention to classes and it showed. Oliver, to his credit, tries his best to pay attention but he thinks he has no hope and because of that he wasn’t retaining the knowledge. Barry decides to get creative and give Oliver some incentive to learn because Oliver could do it, he knew he could.

It takes forever for Oliver to get an answer right, which kind of ruins Barry’s plan, but he gives Oliver a kiss anyways, letting him linger there and enjoy the moment just enough that when Barry pulls away Oliver follows. He presses his hand to Oliver’s chest though and pushes him back, leaving Oliver confused and Barry excited about the coming game. Ollie is upset that Barry pulled away but then Barry asks another question and when he gets it right Barry gives him another kiss.

Oliver picks up on things much faster after that, encouraged by Barry’s kisses, drawing him closer with every correct question, until he messes one up and Barry pulls away again. Oliver accuses him of being a tease but that was the point, and Oliver was significantly less frustrated, at least by the science. Eventually Oliver abandons the science and Barry decides not to resist Oliver’s plans for a make out session because that is far more fun than trying to get Oliver’s class material through his thick skull.

*

His work day was exhausting, and he had ended up working a double, and if he had to hear one more person complain about steak he would find it in himself to stab a person with the knife they were using to cut their damn cow slab. He’s headed out the back when someone catches his eye by waving at him. He frowns and turns to face the person, finding Oliver standing at the end of the ally. “Hey,” he says, managing a weak smile and Oliver draws him in for a hug. Barry lingers there for a minute or so, letting Oliver run his hands up and down his back in comfort.

“You must be tired,” he says and Barry makes a noise of general acknowledgement, “come on, I’ll give you a ride home,” Oliver says and Barry lets him guide him to his car, mostly on auto piolet.

He doesn’t mean to fall asleep on Oliver but he really was tired and he’d spent all day running around and trying not to burn himself on the food he had to carry around. Dealing with people was emotionally exhausting too, especially when they were all so demanding so he figures he would be forgiven for passing out. He was pretty sure Oliver tried to wake him up when he got home but he didn’t remember actually waking up and walking to his bedroom so he could sleep.

His suspicions are confirmed the next morning when he wakes up with Oliver curled protectively around him, snoring lightly into his hair. Oliver sleeps lightly so when Barry shuffles around he wakes up immediately, “go back to sleep,” he mumbles into Barry’s hair, “M’tired still.” He stills and Oliver pulls himself closer to Barry, splaying his hand across his stomach, “good boy.” Barry smiles to himself; comforted by Oliver’s words he falls back asleep again.

The nest time he wakes up it’s because Oliver is shuffling around, “stooooop,” Barry whines, looking over his shoulder to make faces at Oliver.

Oliver laughs, “it’s eleven thirty, Barry, you should be awake by now,” he says and Barry lets out a prolonged moan of distain.

“Noooo. I am a college, I get up at noon,” he says, curling into the fetal position and inadvertently away from Oliver. He decides this will not stand so he flips himself over on his other side so he’s closer to Oliver but it doesn’t really work so he gives up and remains in the fetal position half asleep.

“Get up Barry, we have things to do,” Oliver tells him, gently brushing his hair back from his forehead and honestly it was the sweetest thing.

Barry sighs, “we can’t do things, I have to go grocery shopping because I’ve been putting it off for like a month and I’m tired of rice,” he mumbles, wrinkling his nose.

“ _Barry_ ,” Oliver says in that tone he uses when he wants Barry to listen so he cracks his eyes open to look up at Oliver, who does not look impressed with him at all.

“What, I eat at the restaurant, so technically I eat more that rice. Sometimes,” he says and stretches himself out, making a satisfied noise when he relaxes again.

Oliver still looks pissed off at him, “you will eat on a regular basis,” he says, “and you will eat an _actual_ meal, not _rice_ ,” he says with distain, letting Barry know with his tone and facial expressions that his behavior was unacceptable.

“Fine then, you pay for my groceries,” he says flippantly, fully expecting Oliver to brush it off but instead he goes with it.

“Alright, let’s go,” he says and Barry is forced to backtrack because, _no_ , this was not what he wanted, thank you.

“Ugh, that was a joke. You don’t need to do that, I’m okay, mostly just too lazy to go get groceries, you don’t need to feed me,” he says.

“Obviously I do or you decide _rice_ is acceptable to live off of. Get up and let’s go,” Oliver says and Barry knows the look on his face, he wasn’t going to let this go. Like that time they had an argument over whether or not the Pussycat Dolls said ‘groupies’ or ‘boobies’ in that one song they had and for some reason Oliver took personal offense to him thinking it was boobies. First of all that’s what they said, that was not his fault, Oliver was only mad because Barry was right, and Iris and Cisco agreed. Caitlin thought they said groupies but she was wrong.

Barry sighs, “Isn’t that a little domestic for you? And you have a sports car, I know you’re an expert at making things fit, but I don’t think your expertise is applicable here,” he says.

Oliver is not impressed with his joke, which, rude, he was a comedic genius thank you. “We’ll make it work, not let’s go,” he says. Barry sighs and accepts his fate, figuring if nothing else he was getting a ride to the grocery store, that didn’t mean he was going to let Oliver pay god forbid. He’d probably straight up pretend to die in an aisle before he let that happen.

*

If nothing else this was worth his time because he managed to get Oliver to wear the green infinity scarf he stole from Iris and honestly it was basically a sin that he wasn’t the first owner of the scarf because Oliver looked _great_ in green. “Seriously, you should wear green all the time, and infinity scarves. Green infinity scarves. All the time. Please,” Barry says, grinning at Oliver.

Oliver, on the other hand, looks largely unimpressed with his new look, “I look like a moron,” he says.

“No,” Barry says, “you look hot. This is your new look, accept it.”

Oliver wrinkles his nose, “you wear red all the time, we’d look like fucking Christmas next to each other,” he says.

Barry claps, “yay, I love Christmas!”

For that he gets an eye roll, “I hate Christmas. No, Barry.”

“Yes Barry!” he says, “and seriously. Green is definitely your colour, go call Tommy and Laurel for validation, they will agree with me. Also who hates Christmas?” he asks.

“People who don’t celebrate it or have shit experiences with it,” Oliver says and okay, Barry got that, really, he did, but _Christmas_. If nothing you got time off work.  

“Okay fine, but you, the rich boy, have bad experiences with Christmas?” he says skeptically, “come on, big house, pretty decorations, loving family. It couldn’t have been _that_ bad,” he rationalizes though he knows he’s probably a bit biased considering his own experiences. His father had supposedly killed his mother only a few months before Christmas and the year or so after the murder had been pretty rough, especially because no one believed him. They had thought he was just some scared kid who didn’t want his dad to go to jail but that wasn’t true. He was fairly certain, despite Joe’s insistence otherwise, that no one had even looked too closely at the case to even _try_ to examine the possibility that Barry was right, that someone else was there.

Oliver sighs, “more like boring politics, pretending your family doesn’t hate each other, and getting way to drunk but having to act sober,” he says, “Christmas sucks.” Barry wrinkles his nose at him but then he quickly becomes occupied with teaching Oliver how to grocery shop and seriously, he couldn’t believe that wasn’t a skill everyone had.

He doesn’t really consider the fact that he had roommates and they would probably be at least a little curious as to why, exactly, Oliver Queen would be in their house helping him put away groceries and arguing about Barry’s eating habits until Cisco texts him. “Who’s that?” Oliver asks, removing lettuce from one of the grocery bags with a looks of distain. Oliver’s tastes, unsurprisingly, were considerably different from Barry’s and the two spent at least half their time arguing about food, and the other half of their time arguing about who was paying. Barry had won out both arguments because he was an absolute genius and also Oliver seemed to want to make him happy or at least appease him.

“Cisco, he wants me to go over his chemistry lab, which basically means he wants me to do the chemistry lab,” he says but in Cisco’s defense he was more machine orientated than anything, not that he couldn’t do the science, he just had no reason to want to do it. Barry, on the other hand, was great at chemistry and loved it too, but then he loved all science so maybe he was a little biased. His phone buzzes again and he finds a text from Caitlin, “and Caitlin is telling me not to do Cisco’s lab,” he says. Predictable really, in about five seconds he was going to get a third text from Iris telling him to do Cisco’s lab so he’ll stop bugging her, and about five seconds after that Ronnie will text that he was going to make sure Cisco did his own lab.

Oliver smiles, “yeah, and what are you going to do?” he asks.

Barry abandons his phone and the groceries on the counter and walks over to Oliver, using the collar of his coat to pull him in for a kiss, “I’m not doing Cisco’s lab,” he says and pulls Oliver to the door of his room.

*

Felicity looked skeptical, “Barry this is going to end in disaster,” she tells him and yeah, didn’t they both know it.

“Okay but like… let me figure out what the hell is going on and then we can stop lying to everyone,” he says, trying desperately to smile all his fears away. He was failing and Felicity knew it but hey, she agreed to be involved in this mess so she was just as responsible for the outcome as he was. Okay, so that was totally false, she was just trying to help him out, but still.

“Look, all we have to do is fool Iris and maybe never tell her the truth but it’ll all work out, I promise,” he says with a lot more confidence than he feels.

The look he gets from Felicity is probably warranted but still, he did not feel he was deserving of such little confidence in his incredibly shitty plan that would fool no one. His worries, it turned out, were basically a non-issue because Iris decided Felicity was his perfect match and now he was in even deeper shit than before and all of Felicity’s subtle looks over dinner told him so. Plus at some point he was going to have to tell Oliver if for no other reason than curtesy and that was bound to end horribly. His life was a mess and he had no clue what to do with it so he settles on ignoring all of his problems for the foreseeable future. He’d have to deal with it eventually but for now… well, it wasn’t necessary to do _now_ so he’d do it _later_. Cisco said it worked so he figured he’d give it a shot.

*

He’s eyeballs deep in his books trying to study for an exam that he looked forward to so little he’d actually rather fling himself into the sun than actually study for it when Oliver calls. He should have known something was going on because Oliver was practically allergic to phone calls but he was, in his defense, a little distracted by his school work. “Hey Oli-”

“We agreed to no dates,” he says and if Barry hadn’t heard the noise that came out of his mouth he probably wouldn’t have thought a human could make it. He sounded like a panicked deer and he probably looked like one too.

“Okay, in my defense my friends were suspicious and getting weirdly pushy about it, I mean I had no idea they found my sex life so intriguing. Anyways I panicked and I kind of voluntold Felicity to help a guy out and everyone but Iris knows her so this is a really bad solution and Iris thinks her name is ‘Queenie’ because I freaked out and that’s what my brain came up with on short notice,” he says, barely making it through without taking a breath.

Oliver is silent for a few seconds and Barry is pretty sure he’s gone and blown it but then he starts laughing surprisingly hard. “’Queenie?’” he asks between giggles.

“I _panicked_ , Oliver, it isn’t funny,” he says with conviction, “it was the best I could do on the spot.”

“God, you are absolutely hopeless,” Oliver says, “ _Felicity_? That’s who you decided your solution was going to be? How do you expect this to end?” he asks and thankfully he doesn’t sound mad, actually he sounded kind of amused.

“Okay you know what, why don’t you come up with a better solution then,” he says fully expecting Oliver to come up with some brilliant story that Barry would have never thought of on his own but instead Oliver shocks him.

“Well the truth would have been easier than a weird and convoluted lie,” and Barry’s heart just about falls out of his chest, “I mean how hard can it be to believe that you’ve just slept with some random person?” And his heart settles back into his chest perhaps a little bit painfully.

“For you? Not hard, for me? No one believed that story, one night stands aren’t exactly my thing,” he says, his voice betraying him a little by sounding somewhat upset.

“So what, you only sleep with people you’re dating?” Oliver asks, seemingly oblivious to Barry’s emotional state.

“Not exactly,” he says somewhat hesitantly, “I ugh… haven’t really slept with anyone really, other than you. Obviously, you know that, you were there,” he says awkwardly.

Oliver is silent for a few seconds and Barry starts looking around from things he could fling himself off of and finds nothing to suit his needs. He’d have to settle for leaving the country and never coming back. “Are you telling me that you lost your virginity to me in a bathroom in your work place?” he asks, “Barry, that’s awful, your first time is supposed to be-”

“Special, with someone you love, important, blah, blah, blah. It’s _sex_ Oliver, it’s meaningless without the romance so I figured why not, Oliver Queen in a bathroom at work is a story to tell, I thought it sounded kind of fun,” he says with probably too much cheer.

“That… This… no, that is impossible. I know what experience feels like, you have it,” Oliver says with enough conviction that Barry feels kind of proud of himself for managing to fool Oliver into thinking he was a sexpert.

“Well consider the impossible possible, Queen, because you are my one and only. Sex partner. Just to be clear,” he throws out when he realizes how that sounded.

“I… You… No that is not true, that can’t possibly be true,” Oliver says and really, this was a pleasant confidence booster. Barry wanted ten more.

“It’s true, you’re just going to have to face the facts, you aren’t as much of an expert as you think you are,” he says, grinning. Oliver eventually accepts the truth and compliments Barry on his impressive sex skills because according to Oliver there wasn’t even a learning curve, which was far more validating than it should have been.

He also manages to have an actual conversation about Felicity-turned-Queenie and Oliver reluctantly okay’s it after grudgingly admitting that he didn’t much like the idea of sharing. That was another thing he probably shouldn’t have been so attracted to but really, he couldn’t help that everything about Oliver was just so… _drawing_.


	5. Communicate

Now you want me  
But what if your heart's a liar  
Cause if you change your mind again  
I'll burn like a wildfire

Wildfire, Marianas Trench

Iris insists on spending more time with Felicity and she and Barry agreed that Iris was not a moron; she was bound to catch on eventually. Felicity was giving Barry judge-y looks and frankly he didn’t blame her, this situation was going to end in disaster and they all knew it but he didn’t know what to do. Well, he could always tell the truth but that would create its own mess and he didn’t want to deal with that either. “Okay, I know you don’t think this is a viable option, but have you considered dumping this guy because he sounds like an asshole,” Felicity says and from her point of view Barry got it, he did, but she didn’t have all the information.

“He’s not, really,” he says because Felicity had managed to finagle the gender of the person he was seeing out of him by accident. He had a big mouth and he should probably learn to not use it but bad habits die hard, “things are just… complicated.”

“Complicated because he’s an asshole,” Felicity says, giving him looks over her glasses. He sighs and lets her believe she won this argument, which she did not, because she didn’t really know what was going on. Felicity still agrees to help him out though and he owed her big time for this, maybe he’d buy her a gift basket or something.

*

Oliver was the idiot who agreed that this was a good idea and now he was totally regretting it. In his slight defense he didn’t think he’d see Felicity and Barry in practice and really, he was only upset because it was obvious that they were perfect for each other. This was another one of those Tommy/ Laurel situations wherein someone else was perfect for the person he was with and he got stuck alone. Again. It was probably karma for all the stupid shit he did as a kid.

Barry doesn’t notice him right away, probably far too involved with making sure he looked believable with Felicity though he didn’t really need to try, it was obvious the two had chemistry. Barry does notice him eventually though and his easy smile and bright aura changes slightly, as does his body language. Lust, Oliver knew, because he’s seen the look enough times on Barry and on others. He tried to be flattered really, but it was hard to be the fuckable type rather than the type you’d bring home to parents. Felicity fell into both categories, though she was far more the family-friendly type, which was great for her because lust, in Oliver’s experience, never lasted. He had long ago accepted that he was bound to end up alone, and he was okay with that, but then Barry had to show up and make him happy.

He forgot Laurel was meeting him for lunch, his purpose for leaving his house today, until she shows up. “God Oliver, you looked like a kicked puppy,” she says and drops into her seat, “so what has you looking so wounded?” she asks, smiling at him.

She was a sweet girl, she was, but sometimes he forgot how well they knew each other and how much that annoyed him sometimes. “I’m fine,” he says gruffly, giving her a look to tell her that this line of questioning will achieve nothing and he looks back to Barry, who now had his arm around Felicity.

Laurel follows his gaze, “oh, so you got with legs and now you’re upset that he’s pulled a you and moved on in two seconds?” she says, latching onto the information easily and using it for a line of questioning. Frankly she should have been a cop, she would have been good at it but her father had gone on and on about her safety and after weeks of flipping arguments her father made in their heads Laurel gave up and decided to be a lawyer. She was good at that too, top of her class, and very good at finding information and even better at using it.

“That’s… not true,” he says and he can _feel_ himself pouting even though he was actively trying not to.

Laurel snorts, “I’m not a moron Ollie, you’re totally upset that legs has moved on. Wait, is that Felicity? Oh my god, you’re upset that he moved on to someone you know!” she says, bouncing excitedly in her seat. God, he was really starting to hate Laurel right about now. “Look, you can either continue acting like a kicked puppy or you can go over and talk to legs and work things out,” she says like it’s that simple.

Given the look on her face she actually thought it was that simple. He was going to have to get new friends, even Tommy was going to have to go. He looks back over to Barry and Laurel kicks him under the table, “go, stop acting like someone took a crap in your Cheerios and go communicate like a real boy.” He considers his options for a few minutes and decides fuck it, if he ruins it all now then fine, but sitting here and watching while Barry played boyfriend to Felicity was just as painful so. Off to potentially ruin his not-relationship relationship.

Barry doesn’t see it coming, he thinks, because he looks rather surprised when Oliver pulls him out of Felicity’s loose hold and into a kiss. He makes a surprised noise, not responding for a second before his brain seems to catch up with the rest of him and he relaxes into Oliver’s arms and kisses him back. Kissing Barry was always pleasant, usually Oliver found it to be a chore, a means to an end, but with Barry it was different and he couldn’t identify why. Logically nothing, he knew, was different about Barry’s soft lips, small noises of contentment, the way he clung to Oliver’s collar… nothing was new and yet here he was, feeling emotions he didn’t even know he could feel until Barry. He pulls away and Barry looks vaguely dazed, like he always did, before he seems to come back to himself and he smiles brightly, lifting Oliver’s mood instantly.

God he was so fucked.

“Hey,” he says softly and Barry’s face lights up all over again. He missed that kind of enthusiasm, he used to feel it all the time but after the island he really only felt it around Barry because his eagerness was infectious. It was impossible not to get sucked into Barry’s happiness, like a contact high, and no matter how gloomy Oliver was Barry always seemed to balance him out.

“Hey,” Barry says back, still holding onto Oliver’s collar.

“Uhh,” Iris says from somewhere behind them.

“ _Queenie_ ,” Felicity says, putting two and two together quickly.

“Uhh,” Iris says again and the connection Barry and Oliver had was broken and replaced by the confusion of their friends.

“You have some explaining to do, Oliver Queen,” Felicity says and for the life of him he had no idea why she was so upset. He looks at Barry but he seems just as lost as he was so that yielded no results, “honestly if it wasn’t you I wouldn’t believe that you had no idea how offensive it can be to tell someone to keep your relationship secret but it’s you so. You probably didn’t know that because you’re emotionally constipated,” she says, raising an eyebrow at him.

“He isn’t emotionally constipated,” Barry says, jumping to his defense even though Felicity was right, he’s always been emotionally stunted.

“Relationship?” Iris asks, looking between Barry and Oliver, “you’re damn right you have some explaining to do,” she says, looking at Oliver in particular. He gives Barry a panicked look but Barry seems just as panicked so that didn’t help anyone out here.

“You can start with why you decided it was a good idea to tell Barry not to tell anyone about you,” Felicity tells him when neither he nor Barry say anything.

“I didn’t,” he says eventually and even Barry looks skeptical at that, “what? I never said that,” he says to Barry.

“You did so, you told me to tell everyone else that I slept with some random person, which no one believed by the way,” Barry says, raising his eyebrows as if to say ‘told you so’ when in fact no. That was not what he said at all.

“I told you to tell them the truth, technically I _am_ a random person, I thought you didn’t say anything because you were ashamed or something,” he says and Barry looks at him like he’s stupid.

“ _What_?” he and Iris say in sync, using the same tone of disbelief, “on what planet would someone be ashamed to date you?” Iris and Barry ask, still in sync.

Oliver snorts, “we’ll start with Laurel and work our way backwards, see how many people are happy they had anything to do with me. I can pretty much guarantee that number is zero,” he says. God, he was horrible to people, why Tommy stuck around given some of the shit he’s done to him he had no idea let alone everyone else.

“The number is at least one, I don’t regret anything,” Barry says but _yet_ hangs heavy in the air and Oliver was well aware it was only a matter of time before Barry was in that category too.

“You should, he sounds like an asshole,” Iris says, giving Barry disapproving looks.

“He’s not that bad,” Felicity says and Iris fixes her with a glare too, causing Felicity to flinch.

“Okay before Iris starts World War Three you guys don’t know the whole story, and Iris yesterday you thought Oliver was great so like… give him a chance?” he asks hopefully.

Iris looks offended at this suggestion, “yesterday I didn’t know he made my best friend feel like shit about himself so now he’s not hot and yesterday you thought Tommy was the hot one, when the hell did that change?” she asks, looking confused.

“Actually he only said that to annoy me,” Oliver interjects, “more stuff you don’t know,” he says when Iris only looks more confused.

“Then I suggest the two of you start talking immediately,” Iris tells them, hands on her hips.

“If we could… not,” Oliver says, “that’d be great.”

“I second that,” Barry throws in quickly, earning a glare from both Iris and Felicity.

“What are we seconding?” Laurel asks, coming up from behind them and _god_ Oliver thought this was going to get better, not worse.

“They seem to think that they shouldn’t have to mention when, exactly, they decided that lying to everyone around them about the fact that they have been dating since… whenever, was a good idea,” Felicity says, crossing her arms and giving the two expectant looks.

“My relationship is none of your business,” Oliver tells her and from the look on Felicity, Iris, and Laurel’s faces that was not the right answer. Barry sighs and hides his face, mumbling something about Oliver getting them murdered. He thought that was a bit of an exaggeration but he figures at this point it might be best to stop talking.

“You two,” Laurel says, “have been dating? Since when?” she asks, her tone implying that she expected an answer.

“We haven’t really been dating, more like a long string of one night stands,” Barry says and Oliver frowns at him.

“I’d call it dating,” he says and Barry looks guilty.

“Of course you would, no offense Oliver but you and relationships don’t mix well, don’t look at me like that, he didn’t even know you two were dating. Definition of being bad at relationships. Now when did this happen, do you like each other, how long do you think you’ll be together?” she asks, looking between the two for answers.

Oliver frowns, “if I didn’t like him I wouldn’t have bothered to call him back, Laurel,” he says because that was a logical conclusion.

“And the other two questions?” she asks.

“A few months and I don’t know, I can’t predict the future, I don’t know how long we’ll be together. Why does it matter?” he asks.

Laurel executes perhaps the best eye roll Oliver has ever witnessed, “god, you are relationship inept I swear. Look, I’m not saying you should pressure him into a relationship because that’s terrible but if you don’t pretty much force him to talk about whatever it is that’s annoying him you’ll get in a knock down drag out fight and he’s bringing up shit you did six months ago and you don’t even know why it matters anymore but it does because Oliver’s been yelling about it for thirty minutes. It’s just easier to force him to confront the fact that he does, in fact, have feelings unless you like fighting about that one time you snored too much in your sleep and you kept him awake. You can leave the room and come back like an hour later and he won’t even realize you’re gone too, I’ve done it. Have you guys been together for six months? Because if you have you’re due for a fight about nothing and when you point out that he should have brought whatever it is he’s upset about when it happened he’ll get dramatic and sassy,” she says.

He didn’t think that was a fair assessment at all but Barry nods, “I know, he complains about stuff Thea did like two months ago and I’ll ask if he said anything and it’s always no, which makes no sense because if she doesn’t know she’s being annoying she can’t stop doing whatever is annoying Oliver and then the cycle repeats.”

“I don’t feel the need to complain about everything,” he says defensively, earning looks from Felicity, Barry, and Laurel. Iris still looks generally pissed off and Oliver decides to avoid eye contact and hope for the best.

Barry sighs, “if it bugs you enough that you consistently bring it up it isn’t complaining anymore, it’s an actual problem. It’s okay to have problems and talk about them Oliver, it isn’t a hardship to whoever you have the problem with.” Barry squeezes his hand and usually Oliver wasn’t really reassured by words or touch, it isn’t as if people had inspired him to be reassured by his words, and he certainly hasn’t inspired anyone to be reassured by his words. But Barry, as usual, was the exception to that rule and as usual Oliver isn’t sure why. Something about Barry inspired confidence in him and he wasn’t sure whether he liked it or not because it was only a matter of time before someone fucked something up, probably him.

“Great, so you’re going to talk about stuff now, right?” Laurel says, giving Oliver that _look_ that she got when she expected him to do whatever it was she suggested.

“No,” he mumbles and Laurel raises her eyebrows, “maybe,” he says, relenting just a little.

“I should get lessons from you, there’s this green infinity scarf I have that looks _great_ on Oliver and he thinks that I’m wrong but I am not and if I could do whatever it is you do he’d wear the scarf,” Barry says, already planning ways to get him to wear the damn green scarf again.

“Oh but you would look good in a green infinity-”

“Wait, you gave him _my_ green infinity scarf!” Iris yells, looking like the world had done her a great injustice.

“No, I gave him my green infinity scarf that I stole from you fair and square,” Barry says.

“You can’t steal things fairly,” Iris says.

“You and Caitlin steal mine and Cisco’s sweaters all the time!” Barry protests.

“Yeah, because guy sweaters are designed to actually keep you warm instead of looking pretty, we don’t want to freeze to death. And you and Cisco steal our slippers all the time! Give back my scarf!” she says with emphasis.

“That’s because girl slippers are cute and come in different colors and styles but guy slippers are blue feet sacks and they’re dumb. I like yours better, and no, I like that scarf!” Barry says, pouting at her.

“I think infinity scarves look like neck condoms,” Oliver says, interrupting their argument.

“They do not!” Barry says, looking offended.

“Not on you,” Oliver says, wincing at his horrible attempt at backtracking.

“Infinity scarves to not look like neck condoms,” Barry says, touching his neck self-consciously.

“No one cares about whether or not infinity scarves look like neck condoms, go talk about your communication issues like normal adults,” Laurel says. 


	6. Love You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's a little long considering a lot of it is generally useless, but it leads up to some stuff so. Also this week's quote is a lil long but that's ok lol.
> 
> I'm almost done exams though! I'M ALMOST FREEEEEEEEE!

The slow and simple melody  
Of tears you cannot keep from me  
It's alright if you don't know what you need  
I'm right here when  
You need someone to see  
It's not speak  
Or forever hold your peace  
It's alright to take time  
And find where you've been  
You are perfect porcelain

Porcelain, Marianas Trench

They lay sprawled across Oliver’s bed, trying their best to avoid their friends and all the comments that was sure to come with their presence, though they seemed to have found a way around that via texting. “Laurel has sent me at least fifty things to talk to you about and half of them are useless, why do I need to know your favorite ice cream flavor? I already know that, you’re one of those really weird people who thinks that the more chocolate there is the better and no matter what the treat is if it has chocolate on it you’ll eat it,” Oliver says and when the hell had he come across that information? Barry tries to remember a time when he brought up his love for all things chocolate but he can’t remember having brought up the subject, at least not with Oliver.

“And your favorite color, it’s red, you’re always wearing red obviously it’s your favorite color,” Oliver says, rolling his eyes and moving on to the next question. “Your favorite movie, well, movie series is the Fast and the Furious movies, or anything romance related. I have no idea why you like romance movies, they’re all the same,” he mumbles.

“They’re sweet!” Barry says, pouting at Oliver.

“They’re boring,” he says, fondly rolling his eyes at Barry.

Well. Barry though Oliver’s obsession with war films was ridiculous, honestly how many times could a guy watch people blow up in World War Two and still be entertained? “Well war movies are all the same, people die and it’s sad but you like those,” he says.

“War films are an interesting look at how propaganda is used to promote the idea of ‘America the Brave’ when America is anything but. Also I like tanks,” Oliver says indignantly.

“Why does that even matter?” Barry asks, “you aren’t supposed to watch movies to analyze them Oliver, you’re supposed to enjoy them,” he says.

“If you aren’t watching movies to analyze their cultural relevance why watch them at all?” Oliver counters, looking confused.

“To waste time and bond with friends?” Barry says but his voice goes up a bit at the end, turning that statement into a question because he truly had no idea why Oliver thought cultural relevance was important for the movie watching experience.

“That’s so limiting,” Oliver says and Barry sighs, crawling closer to Oliver.

“Why are you taking business classes when you have an interest in cultural studies?” he asks.

“Because I’m supposed to run Queen Consolidated at some point,” he says like that was a real answer.

“Leave it to Thea and do what you want to do,” he says but Oliver makes a face.

“I can’t just do whatever I want, Barry,” he says and Barry snorts.

“You’re a rich white guy, I’m not sure you’ve been paying attention to anything ever but yeah, you can do whatever you want, Oliver. Besides, business classes bore the hell out of you and for some reason you look science electives and you don’t even understand any of the material, why make yourself miserable by doing things you don’t like? I mean worst come to worst if you’re mom gets upset about it you can guilt trip her with almost dying on an island, what’s she going to do, tell you you have to be miserable after you almost died? No,” Barry says because she would not.

Oliver frowns, “that’s actually really manipulative but it would work,” he says, sounding surprised.

Barry shrugs, “before Iris decided to go into journalism she wanted to be a cop but Joe wouldn’t let her so we came up with a bunch of ways to manipulate him into letting her do what she wanted. Well, she came up with a bunch of stuff, I’m just reiterating,” he says because manipulation wasn’t really his thing most of the time. Iris’ efforts didn’t really work out but he learned a thing or two.

“Hmm. Well, back to Laurel’s stupid questions. Why is the position you sleep in relevant?” he asks, giving Barry a look.

Barry flips himself over, looking at Oliver upside down, “it is very relevant. What if you slept like… really weird and I had to like sleep around you or something? That would be the end of the world, we would obviously never work out and we could never speak to each other again. Ever. Because you might sleep weird,” he says.

Oliver laughs, shaking his head, “if anyone is sleeping weird it’s you, your legs go like… everywhere, and sometimes you jerk in your sleep and smack me in the face. It’s actually kind of adorable,” Oliver says, wrapping his arm around Barry’s waist and pulling him closer.

“That totally isn’t adorable, it’s mean!” Barry says, sounding concerned.

“You can’t help how you sleep, besides you always curl up in a ball and snuggle into my chest and honestly it’s so cute,” Oliver says and Barry smiles curling into Oliver’s side, “and stop wiggling around, stay in one position for more than four seconds,” he tells him.

“Iris has told me that I sleep like a poltergeist is inside me,” he says, which was totally proven by his inability to stay still for more than a few seconds. He and Iris used to sleep together when it was storming but eventually Iris got annoyed with how much Barry moved in his sleep and decided to get a dog.

“That’s not true. I mean you move a little bit in your sleep, but not too much, not like a poltergeist is inside you. Maybe just a regular ghost, or like a cat ghost,” Oliver says and he’s trying so hard to be sweet but a _cat_ ghost?

“You’re terrible at being sweet,” Barry tells him, “but it’s kind of cute to watch you flounder,” he says.

Oliver gives him an unimpressed look and turns back to his phone, “what are your goals in life? Probably to not die, that sounds pretty reasonable,” Oliver says and for a second Barry has to contemplate whether or not Oliver was serious. Eventually he had to come to the conclusion that, yes, Oliver was serious.

“Oh Oliver, you are helpless. I have no clue what I’m doing with my life, I’m just find of winging it right now and it’s going pretty well,” he says. That was mostly true, he did have actual goals but he wasn’t about to tell Oliver his father had been charged with killing his mother and he wasn’t actually guilty and Barry was a bit obsessed with finding the actual culprit. It’d ruin the mood.

“Well my life goals are to never, _ever_ end up shipwrecked on an island again. Other than that I don’t know, probably end up CEO of Queen Consolidated or something,” he says, sounding a mix of disinterested and miserable.

“Jeeze Oliver, don’t sound so excited about that,” he says sarcastically, getting another look from Oliver, “just saying,” he says, shrugging.

Oliver sighs, “next useless topic. Parents. Next useless topic because that one sucks. General personality compatibility. How does she expect us to measure that?” he asks, frowning.

Barry shrugs, “dunno. But I think we’ve proven ourselves pretty compatible,” he says, grinning.

Oliver snorts, “in bed, maybe.”

“Oh come on, we’ve had actual conversations, you talked about that whole Sarah thing, I talked about that time I accidentally shot myself with a nail gun. We know stuff about each other,” he reasons.

Oliver frowns, “it occurs to me that you know a lot more about me than I do about you,” he says and Barry sighs.

“That’s because my life isn’t publicized like yours. Well, at least not most of it,” he says.

“And what was publicized? Did you win a science fair or something?” he asks, laughing lightly.

“Yeah, no. Actually I did in eighth grade and it made the paper but that wasn’t what I was referring to. I… ugh, well, you aren’t the only one with a pretty fucked up family,” he says finally, deciding that being blunt would be the key here. It seemed to work just fine for Oliver.

Oliver raises an eyebrow, “does it beat getting shipwrecked on an island, watching your father die, getting rescued, showing up at your own funeral, finding out your little sister scored coke at your funeral, your best friend sleeping with your girlfriend, and now my mom is dating my dad’s ex business partner. I’m sure you think you have good reason to be nervous but honestly I’m pretty sure I have you beat,” he says and Barry wasn’t so sure.

“My dad murdered my mom. I mean he didn’t do it, but he’s been convicted because no one believed my story when I told them someone else was in the house because they thought I was just some scared kid making stuff up. Like yeah, I was a scared kid, but that doesn’t make my story any less true,” he says, winching.

Oliver seems to take it with grace, Barry thinks, because Oliver doesn’t really react at first. “So… you watched who the police assumed was your father murder you mom?” he asks, apparently trying to get his facts straight before he decided to judge.

“Yeah, kind of, I mean she told me to run before she, you know, got stabbed to death and I did but it wasn’t my dad,” he says adamantly.

Oliver raises both his eyebrows and looks away, “I was wrong about being the only one with a crazy fucked up family,” he says, “but it explains why you’re so open minded. Kind of always wondered why you wouldn’t even bat an eye when I’d talk about how fucked up we all are, even Tommy gives me judgmental looks and trust me, if you ever met his dad you’d know he should keep his looks to himself,” Oliver says and Barry lets out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. Sure, Oliver had a pretty fucked up family himself so he didn’t have much of a right to judge, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t and for all he knew Oliver wouldn’t want to deal with his crazy family too. It wasn’t like Barry would blame him; Oliver had enough crap to deal with before considering Barry’s own baggage.

Barry shrugs, “yeah, well. I know what it’s like when people don’t listen to what you say and then turn around and say they’re there for you when you both know that they’re only there for you when it’s convenient for them. I try not to do that to other people,” he says. He knew how frustrating that was, how much it made him want to rip his own hair out, he wouldn’t want to do that to anyone.

“I fucking _hate_ that!” Oliver says, “like sure, you’re there for me but only when you think my problems are actually problems by _your_ standards instead of _mine_ when that doesn’t even make sense. If you don’t actually want to deal with my problems fine, but at least be up front about it,” he says in a frustrated tone.

“And then they wonder why you don’t talk to them and if you’re honest they get defensive, but if you lie they get defensive so you’re stuck in a no win situation in which everyone makes you the villain all because you want to be taken seriously and everyone refuses to actually _listen_ ,” Barry says sadly. He loved Joe, and he appreciated all that Joe did for him but those early years were so frustrating because he, along with the rest of the police force, ignored Barry’s insistence that someone _else_ was there. Eventually he stopped bringing it up because if no one was going to listen what was the point in talking about it?

“God yeah, and then you’re some spoiled unappreciative brat because you expect to be treated with basic decency and respect,” Oliver says, “or you’re ‘too young’ to know and that pisses me off even more because fuck you, my whole life you want me to make life-long decisions like going to college and then all of the sudden I’m too young to know? How fucking _convenient_. What a shitty excuse for you to not acknowledge that you’re being an asshole,” Oliver says bitterly.

“I always hated when people told me I should shut up about my dad because Joe took me in when he didn’t have to and I was just being a nuisance and being ungrateful, blah, blah. Why did Joe being a good person mean I couldn’t have thoughts and opinions? To Joe’s credit when I pointed that out he chewed out the entire police force for bullying a nine year old but still, I don’t think a child should have to point out adults bullying them is wrong, that’s kind of a given,” he says.

Oliver snorts and them starts laughing, “oh my god that isn’t funny at all I am so sorry, I’m just imagining this angry dad type chewing out a room full of indignant cops,” he says, “that’s way funnier than it should be.”

Barry smiles, “it was actually really satisfying,” he confesses, “they were all so pissed off about it too; some of them still don’t like me.”

“Seriously?” Oliver asks and Barry nods, “what the fuck?” he says and rolls his eyes.

They talked some more, sharing a few details of their childhoods, finding that they both had a lot in common despite being totally different people from totally different back grounds. Both had spent a large portion of their childhood feeling out of control and ignored, both only trusted a select few people with their secrets, and they both spent a surprising amount of time in love with their best friends though neither of them would ever admit it. Though Oliver had grown up, sort of, and developed depression, anxiety, and bad self-esteem while Barry mostly learned to cope with his issues they both had a pretty good frame of reference for how the other was feeling.

“I knew there was a reason something about you was just… different,” Oliver tells him, burying his nose in Barry’s hair. “Everything about us has been so… easy, you know? The way everyone talks about romance has always put me off, people talk about relationships the same way they do factory work, like you’re repeating all the same shit over and over and hoping it works this time. I didn’t get it, especially because no romance movie matches what people talk about, the movies are all sunshine and roses and what people talk about sounds like a fucking drag, honestly. But then I met you,” Oliver says, “and suddenly everything made so much more sense. Well, not the cultural narratives, but why people even bothered.”

Barry grins, “I love romance movies,” he says though Oliver already knew that despite Barry never telling him that, at least that he could remember. “But that feeling never seemed to translate to real life. I’ve watched Iris date, and Caitlin is engaged, I’ve seen Cisco make some pretty hilarious attempts to date but none of it seemed like something I even wanted. I figured that maybe my being a hopeless romantic gave me too high of expectations or something so I gave up some of my ideas, just the ones that didn’t make much sense anyways. Like sex being this huge meaningful moment, I’ve lived my whole life without it and I didn’t love anyone any less so I decided it was kind of a stupid idea anyways and then I met you. It didn’t really mean anything at first but it does now so I think technically it still counts,” he says.

Oliver doesn’t say anything but Barry can hear his heart beat faster at his words and his breath catches for a second and it doesn’t matter that Oliver choose to keep quiet in that moment.

*

Oliver wasn’t sure who decided it was a good idea to drink wine, probably Laurel, but now Barry and Laurel were wasted and making a simultaneously hilarious and sad attempt at doing dishes. So far Laurel managed to break two glasses and Barry lost a spoon. Thankfully Tommy had thought to hide the knives somewhere that Laurel was probably going to be annoyed with when she found them sober. Oliver and Tommy had abandoned them in the kitchen in favor of standing on the porch listening to them talk about, well, Oliver mostly. “Does he still do that ‘mark my territory with hickeys’ thing?” Laurel asks and Barry giggles.

“Oh my god, yeah, I don’t think he knows that words are also effective,” Barry slurs.

“Just so you know Oliver is basically _just_ above cave man status as far as affection goes. If it was socially acceptable to club you over the head and drag you off to his cave he would do it, and he has an actual cave. Well, it’s not a _real_ cave, it’s a _man_ cave, what the hell _that_ means,” Laurel says, lifting her hands out of the dish water and sending it everywhere.

“That is not true,” Oliver says to Tommy, “I would not do that, I’m not a barbarian.”

Barry starts giggling harder at laurel’s reaction, clinging to the counter for support, “it’s so true!”

“No it’s not,” Oliver hisses, “why do they think that’s true?” he asks Tommy.

“Probably because you think that growling and grunting at things that annoy you instead of using words is a normal thing to do,” Tommy says.

“It was _one_ time, Tommy. That does not dictate all my behavior patterns,” he protests.

“Dude, I went to steal a carrot off your plate earlier and you literally growled at me,” Tommy says, “and to add insult to injury you didn’t even growl when Barry did it.”

“I like Barry better,” Oliver says and Tommy smacks him, causing them both to laugh and turn back to Barry and Laurel, who seemed to have moved onto a new subject.

“Well I think it’s of weird looking,” Barry says.

Laurel snickers, “that’s true. Tommy’s is much cuter,” she says and Oliver and Tommy exchange horrified looks before turning back to their respective significant others.

“Well lucky you,” Barry slurs, “at it doesn’t look like Danny Diveto.”

Laurel almost falls on the ground laughing, “what?” she asks loudly.

“Have you never come across a Danny Diveto? You really are lucky,” Barry says and Oliver and Tommy go back to sharing horrified looks.

“Are… are they comparing our dicks?” Tommy asks, looking more upset than he should considering he was winning.

“Why are you so upset? Mine’s weird, yours is cute,” Oliver says, rolling his eyes because that was _not_ true.

“Because this is _wrong_ ,” Tommy insists, “I did not want that information about your peen, and I don’t think you wanted info about mine,” he says.

“The fact you just referred to your dick as a ‘peen’ means I win the dick competition due to maturity,” Oliver says, deadpan. Tommy gives him a skeptical look but they both turn back to Barry and Laurel.

“The _lizard flick_ ,” Barry says with emphasis.

Laurel looks disgusted, “what does that mean?” she asks.

“Like… when you kiss like a serpent,” Barry says and flicks his tongue out.

Tommy gives Oliver a grossed out look, “oh man I hope he’s not referring to you man, that’s just gross.”

“He is _not_ talking about me,” Oliver says, offended that Tommy would even come to that conclusion.

“You have the _worst_ sexual experiences,” Laurel tells Barry.

Barry shrugs, “could be worse,” he says.

“Could be Oliver,” Laurel says, “oh wait.” The two dissolve into giggles and Tommy covers his mouth and doubles over, pointing and laughing at Oliver. He knew damn well he was satisfying in bed, thank Laurel very much! And he had no clue why Barry was laughing because he shouldn’t be; he’s made the guy cum enough for him to not think he was shitty in bed, thanks.

“Leave Ollie alone, he tries,” Barry slurs, “and he’s actually pretty really good.”

Laurel straightens up a little, “that’s true, I mean he has enough experience,” she says and they both start laughing again. “You think Tommy asks Oliver for sex advice?” Laurel asks.

“Do you think he should?” Barry counters and yes, does Laurel think Tommy needs a lesson or two in sex from Oliver? Because it would be _so_ satisfying if that was a yes.

“The answer is obviously no,” Tommy says with confidence, “I know that I know Laurel’s body well.”

Oliver snorts and they both turn back to Laurel and Barry to get the answer. “Well Tommy’s not _bad_ ,” Laurel says and Tommy gives him an ‘I told you so’ look, which Oliver thinks is premature, “but Oliver has some serious oral sex talent that he needs to pass on to Tommy and like… the whole male species, seriously, he’s like… a _gift_ ,” Laurel says with meaning, now clinging to Barry’s shoulders. Oliver grins at Tommy, who looks mildly offended now.

“Oh there is no need to convince me of his oral sex talents,” Barry says, also clinging to Laurel’s shoulders, “trust me, he’s like… freakishly good, like… like a sex wizard! Swizard!” Barry says with meaning.

“I know,” Laurel says, “I _know_. One time I came like seven times in an hour,” she says and Barry looks deeply impressed.

Tommy gives Oliver a shocked and disbelieving look, “ _seven_ times? Dude, how am I supposed to live up to that?”

Oliver grins and shrugs, “not my problem man, but clearly I am the accepted sexpert,” he says, basking in his own glory.

“Well your dick is weird,” Tommy says, wrinkling his nose.

“Well my weird dick gets results,” Oliver counters and Tommy narrows his eyes at him, causing Oliver to laugh even if it wasn’t technically his dick that got the results.

“Well I am definitely the better communicator,” Tommy says and Oliver doesn’t argue in part because it’s true and also because the poor guy got pitted against his best friend in bed and lost according to his own girlfriend. That had to sting, not that Oliver would know because he was better in bed. _Score_.

“Well hands down Tommy is the better communicator,” Laurel says and Tommy grins and gives Oliver another ‘told you so’ look.

“That’s probably true, but Oliver’s prettier,” Barry says and Laurel considers for a second before nodding, leaving poor Tommy offended all over again.

“But Tommy won’t sleep with your sister and almost get her killed,” Laurel says.

“Definitely a plus,” Barry says, “but I’m pretty sure Iris would eat him if he tried so. I bet Oliver’s more adventurous in bed,” he says, grinning. Which yes, Oliver knew that to be true for a fact because Tommy was painfully vanilla though that worked out just fine with Laurel.

“Actually I could that as a point for Tommy,” Laurel says and Tommy looks so relieved Oliver felt bad for him, “Oliver’s a too adventurous for me,” she says.

Barry looks surprised, “really? I think he could be a little more adventurous,” he says and now Oliver was curious as to what Barry meant by that.

“Do you think we should let them know we can hear them?” Tommy asks.

“Are you kidding, this is great,” Oliver says, grinning, “don’t look so upset man, being pretty and good at sex does nothing to make a relationship work, if anything having a relationship based only on that is a recipe for disaster because neither of those things have any substance. There’s a reason Laurel’s with you and not me and that’s because I’m shit at relationships,” he says.

Tommy smiles, “thanks, man,” he says, sounding touched.

“Still the swizard though,” he says and Tommy punches his arm, causing them both to laugh.

*

Barry was a very clingy and talkative drunk, which was no surprise to Oliver because that was basically what he was like sober just on a lower scale. It did, however, make getting him into bed and keeping him there difficult, “ _stay_ ,” Oliver says with meaning, hoping Barry listened this time.

“You stay,” Barry counters and _god_ the guy had the most impossible puppy dog face, he didn’t even know humans could reach that level of cute until Barry decided to weaponize it.

“Barry…” he says.

“Oliver,” Barry pouts, batting his eyelashes at him and no human should have the right to be so damn cute.

“You’re drunk,” he tells Barry in place of an answer.

“I prefer selectively sober,” he slurs.

“Oh my god, did Laurel teach you that? She’s a bad influence,” he decides.

“Stay,” Barry says again, “also Laurel thinks you’re better in bed than Tommy. Thought you should know,” he mumbles, eye lids dropping as he finally started to drop off to sleep. Thank god. Oliver was only human, he had stuff to do tomorrow and he’d be far too tempted to nurse Barry’s inevitable hangover than actually do stuff.

“Yeah, we heard the whole conversation,” he says.

“Aww,” Barry mumbles, “poor Tommy. But yay you! I think you’re the better option all around but Laurel is not adventurous,” he slurs, “and she loves Tommy. But I love you so.” So _what_ Oliver wants to know but Barry has decided this was an appropriate sentence end.

“You are far too drunk for your own good,” he says because there was no way Barry meant that. No way.

“Am not,” Barry protests, “if you’re talking about the love you thing I’ve loved you for months. I’d say it sober too, love you Oliver Quweeen,” he says, yawning wide and laughing slightly at his slight mispronunciation of Oliver’s last name.

For a second Oliver doesn’t know what to do because Barry was wasted. Did he actually mean that? And if he didn’t could Oliver handle that? Probably not, he decides. “I love you too, Barry,” he says quietly, kissing him on the top of the head and leaving.


	7. Gay Swans

Oh, my stomach’s tied in knots  
I’m afraid of what I’ll find if you wanna talk tonight  
See the problem isn’t you, it’s me, I know  
I can tell, I’ve seen it time after time  
And I’ll push you away  
I get so afraid

Stomach Tied in Knots, Sleeping With Sirens

Barry was fairly certain if death came to take him now he’d go willingly and without a fight. Who knew wine could be so deadly? It was grapes, damnit. He shudders and reaches for his phone, wincing hard when the bright light hits his face but the pain in his head was almost worth it when he sees a text from Oliver.

At least until he remembers that he went and fucking told Oliver he loved him and oh god, obviously Oliver was dumping his ass. He has made a mistake and thinking about it makes his head hurt more. He would have left the phone there and dealt with fate later but it buzzes again. And again. And again and damnit someone was calling him.

“Eiiiihhhh,” he answers in way of an actual greeting.

On the other side of the call someone laughs softly, “that bad, hmm?” a silky voice asks and hey, it’s Oliver calling to check up on him. Or dump him. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“Yeah,” he whines, “my head hurts and I have to pee but my body feels like it’s dying,” he moans.

Oliver laughs again and Barry lets out a prolonged groaning sound, “want me to come over?” Oliver asks and Barry’s brain is telling him no, you stupid shit, you probably look like something that came out of a cat’s ass if you’re lucky enough to look that good, but his heart says _yes_. Also he was a god damn baby when it came to hang overs.

“Yeah,” he tells Oliver.

“Okay, I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Love you,” he says and the line goes dead. For a second Barry thinks Oliver cured his hang over with that but then he moves and nope, it was just false hope. He does, however, get a good whiff of his own smell and he decides that twenty minutes was enough time for him to kind of shower and pee and maybe brush his teeth. After yawning again he decides he definitely needed to brush his teeth for his own sake let alone Oliver’s.

He crawls himself out of bed slowly, groaning loudly as he made his way to the door of his bedroom. Iris winces at him when he opens the door, “you look like shit, Barry,” she says and that totally inspires confidence in a guy.

He makes a face and lets out another prolonged groaning noise, “leave me alone,” he whines, making faces at her.

“I’m not nursing you back to health, I have better thing to do then pet you and tell you you’re pretty and listen to you cry over gay swans,” she warns, shaking her head at him and walking away. Barry, mercifully, manages to keep his shit together and not cry at gay swans but only barely.

In the end he managed to mostly brush his teeth, the rest of him was sort of clean, he had decided light was the enemy, and his head was pounding. He knows right away when Oliver arrives because Iris asks what the hell he was doing there far louder than strictly necessary. Oliver says something back but Barry can’t really hear it, mercifully, but he does hear Iris tell Oliver to fuck off. “Iris, stop being an ass,” he yells and he regrets it immediately because his head starts throbbing harder.

She must decide to let Oliver go because he comes through the door not long after Barry told Iris to leave poor Oliver be. “Is she always so much of a pitbull?” Oliver asks, thankfully being quite about it.

Barry sighs, “yeah, she thinks I’m fragile and in need of protection,” he says and wrinkles his nose. He was _not_ fragile and he didn’t need Iris to protect him from stuff. Well, most of the time, sometimes he had use for her face punching skills.

“I kind of got that when she threatened to kill me if I broke your heart,” he says.

Barry groans and pulls his blanket over his head, “I’m so sorry. This is why I’m single. That and probably because I’m horribly awkward,” he says.

“You aren’t that bad,” Oliver tells him and Barry pulls his blanket down just enough to give Oliver a look, “okay so maybe you’re a little awkward but I’m friends with Felicity and she’s also awkward.”

“True,” Barry says, “but Felicity is pretty, which is a point in her favor that I do not have. I look like a rat, and when I’m wet I look like a drowned rat.”

Oliver squints at him, “have you ever seen a rat? Even if you did look like a rat rats are cute, and very clean despite popular opinion. Speaking of, did you shower?” he asks.

Barry sighs, “I make poor decisions when hungover so technically yes, but in reality I sort of poured shampoo on my head and sat under hot water while brushing my teeth. I think my brain may actually be trying to kill the rest of me,” he says, wrinkling his nose.

“Well at least you don’t smell like a winery, Tommy sent me like fifty snapchats this morning of him trying to get Laurel to move and in the end it resulted in him being locked out of her apartment,” Oliver tells him, “if he listened to my advice and brought her soup and a coffee she would have been just fine but no, he decided he knew her hangover habits better and now he’s in the dog house. On the plus side I brought you soup, no coffee though because you don’t like coffee and I know you like tea but apparently there are like five billion teas and honestly its leaf water, how many combinations can there be? So I brought Advil in place of the tea because apparently you remembered to shower but not take something for your headache,” he says, smiling at Barry.

Barry pulls himself into a mostly sitting but still slumped over position, “aww, you’re the best,” he says, “and for the record unless it’s green I don’t care about what kind of tea it is.”

Oliver was a good sport really, Barry was well aware that he was not a fun hangover person because he whined and cried at everything. Oliver takes it in stride though, doing mostly well and laughing hysterically when Barry remembered that time he borrowed Cisco’s pencil and forgot to give it back and cried. Barry insisted that it wasn’t funny at all and honestly the situation wasn’t even that funny but Oliver laughed anyways, insisting that was one of the funniest things he’d ever seen. “Wow, I mean I’ve hear of the weepy drunk, but never the weepy hangover. And crying over _pencils_ , I’m sorry but that’s just hilarious,” Oliver says and Barry gives him a look that probably wouldn’t have been intimidating on the best of days but was probably significantly less intimidating with red rimmed eyes and a trembling chin.

“This is way better than dealing with Laurel and Tommy. Laurel eats her soup, drinks her coffee, and then snarls at you until you leave. Tommy doesn’t even get hangovers so he’s boring, and also an asshole to everyone who _does_ get hangovers. Like me,” he says. “Oh hey, don’t cry more, at least there are no Danny Devito dicks?”

That statement was just confusing enough to give Barry pause and gather himself for a second because _what_? “Danny Devito… dicks?” he asks, confused as to what deep dark crevice of Oliver’s mind that came out of.

“Yeah, you and Laurel last night, you were talking about dicks. Apparently mine is weird, Tommy’s is cute, and some sorry soul has a dick that looks like Danny Devito,” Oliver says and it takes him a moment to remember that conversation, mostly because it had nothing to do with dicks.

“We were talking about birth marks, Oliver, not penises,” he says, frowning. He had no clue how someone would even come to that conclusion but he had been drunk so.

Oliver frowns, “but… that… it was so suspicious,” he says.

“Get your mind out of the gutter, apparently Tommy has a cute birth mark and yours kind of looks like a paint splat on your left ass cheek, that’s weird. And so is Danny Devito,” he says.

“But… you said Laurel was lucky she’s never come across a Danny Devito,” Oliver says and _oh_ , now Barry can see why he may have thought they were talking about dicks.

“Do you know how weirdly specific a Danny Devito shaped birth mark is? Anyone would be luck not to have one or know someone who has one,” he says logically.

“So… who has the Danny Devito shaped birth mark?” Oliver asks after a few minutes of thinking over Barry’s admittedly flawed drunk logic.

“Iris, but don’t tell anyone. She’s ashamed of Danny Devito and she’d probably kill me if she knew I told you,” he says.

“Okay… I guess it is a weirdly specific birth mark,” he says, “wait, are you crying over Danny Devito?” he asks and Barry sniffs.

“He’s just so short, it’s sad,” he says and he thinks it’s time for another Advil and maybe some more sleep because even he thinks this is just too much. How anyone dealt with hung over him he had no idea because he was very annoying.

Oliver considers the situation for a minute before laughing, “I’m so sorry, I know I should be comforting you or something but you’re crying over Danny Devito,” he says.

*

“That sounds thrilling, Oliver,” Felicity says, definitely not sounding very thrilled about Oliver recounting hung over Barry.

“It was hilarious,” he insists because it _was_. Barry, he had decided, was probably the most hilarious drunk and hung over person he had ever met even if he did do a lot of crying.

Felicity looks at him over the top of her computer, “look, you know when people are really in love and they talk for hours about some mundane thing their partner did that literally no one cares about? That is you, right now, talking for,” she looks back at her lap top screen, “the last forty-five minutes about Barry crying. Think about that Oliver, forty-five minutes about Barry crying. Literally no one but you thinks that is cute and if we could move on to a more interesting not Danny Devito related topic that would be lovely,” she says gently.

“You had to have been there,” he decides because he refused to believe this was some ‘romantic partner is acting stupid about the person they are seeing’ thing. It just wasn’t true.

“Oh I’ve dealt with hung over Barry and he cried like five times at gay swans, I’ve worked out a system. When he wakes up avoid him like the plague, wait till he goes back to his room, throw some Ben and Jerry’s in there with a spoon a few hours later, and go back to avoiding him,” she says, “you are on your own,” she tells him.

Oliver wrinkles his nose at her because she was wrong, also Barry responded very well to the soup so his method was obviously superior. They end up talking about Felicity’s ex, Ray Palmer, who was apparently back in town and wanted to see Felicity. She wasn’t sure whether or not to follow through and frankly Oliver thought the guy was a creep so his advice was to avoid Palmer for like… ever. That somehow brings them back around to Barry and Oliver doesn’t even notice how long he’s been talking until Felicity points it out.

“Congratulations, Oliver, you just spent,” she looks at her screen, “twelve minutes describing Barry’s eye colour. Which is blue, by the way, which know, by the way. I actually thought that that trope of the doting significant other spending literal hours describing the other’s eye colour was a stupid and obviously made up trope but I think you could probably manage it. You are in some serious love, my friend,” she tells him and _no_ , Barry just had pretty eyes. Love had nothing to do with it.

“Oh come on, you were like… _obsessed_ with Palmer, who’s a creep, by the way,” he says with emphasis because he never liked that guy. Felicity deserved better, less creepy dates.

“I wasn’t obsessed, I was in a relationship, you’re obsessed. Not that that’s a bad thing for Barry but the rest of us have to suffer until you calm down,” she says and rude, he was not obsessed!

“I’m not obsessed, I’m a relationship,” he says, using Felicity’s own words against her.

“Oh so you’ve labeled it now, good, because you think Barry crying over Danny Devito is cute and if you weren’t committed by now I’d be worried,” she says.

Oliver makes a face, “it’s not committed, it’s… like… a causal relationship,” he says.

“Are you seeing other people?” she asks.

“Well, no, but-”

“How long has that been a thing?” she asks.

“A few months, but that’s not the point,” he insists.

“Look, you’re freaking out, I get it, I can’t imagine spending twelve minutes describing someone’s eye colour either, but face it. You’re in committed relationship and you are head over heels in love because wow, _twelve_ minutes on the colour blue. I didn’t even know you knew that many words,” she says, looking confused.

“I… that… of course I know that many words!” he says, mildly offended.

Felicity decides to ignore him, “I have decided that Ray Palmer was definitely not the worst guy I’ve ever dated and I’m going to say yes to going out with him,” she says.

Oliver rubs his temples, “Felicity, no, the guy is a sleaze ball who thought that buying the chain of stores you worked for after you told him you didn’t want to work for him, which pretty much forced you to work for him one way or another, was flattering. It isn’t flattering, it’s fucking weird, and he obviously has consent issues, you can do better,” he insists.

Felicity sighs, “look, I know you’re not a fan, but I’ve done worse,” she says.

“Yeah, name one guy, or girl, that was worse than Ray Palmer,” Oliver says, raising an eyebrow. Come hell or high water Felicity was _not_ going out with that creep again.

“The guy I dated before him died in prison, Ollie, Ray was definitely a step up,” she points out.

Oliver squints at her, “Felicity not dying in prison is not a step up, it’s a requirement,” he says, deadpan.

*

Felicity texts him to tell him it was his job to keep Oliver occupied for the next few hours because apparently he was not fond of her date. Ray had been around previous to Barry’s knowing her but he did know that she cared about him and he figured Felicity knew what was best for Felicity. So he had agreed to occupy Oliver if for no other reason than knowing how irritating it was to have friends who thought they knew more about what was better for you than you did. Oliver, however, did not share his view point, “you don’t know Palmer,” he says and yes, that was true, but Oliver made the guy sound like the literal devil. Felicity, aside from saying that he had a tendency to be annoying, didn’t seem to share any of Oliver’s opinions.

“So I don’t, but I do know Felicity and don’t you think it’s… I don’t know, rude and condescending to tell her what’s best for her when she’s more than capable of deciding what’s best for her herself?” he asks. It was rude and condescending no matter what answer Oliver came back with, he and Felicity had had this discussion several times. They both had friends who they both knew cared and only wanted what was best for them, but they both found it annoying when said friends decided that they were in charge of making sure they didn’t get hurt or whatever.

“But Palmer-” Oliver starts and Barry cuts him off.

“It doesn’t matter, it’s Felicity’s choice to make and you don’t like it when Iris is an ass to me about you because you think that I should be able to make my own choices. Why is Felicity any different?” he asks.

“I just don’t want her to get hurt,” Oliver says, looking grumpier than usual.

“Well if you keep acting like this she will get hurt, only by you instead of Ray Palmer because you’re supposed to be her friend and instead you’ve decided that it’s acceptable to tell her who she can and can’t date. Which is creepy, by the way,” he throws in because it needed to be said.

“I’m not trying to tell her who she can and can’t date, don’t look at me like that,” Oliver says when Barry gives him a skeptical look; “I’m just saying she shouldn’t date Palmer.”

Barry rolls his eyes, “really, Oliver? Well Iris isn’t telling me who I can and can’t date, she’s just telling me not to date you,” he says to try and put things into perspective for Oliver.

“That’s different,” he says and Barry rolls his eyes again because no it wasn’t.

“Stop making excuses, Felicity isn’t a fragile flower in need of your protection, she’s a person who is more than capable of making her own decisions,” he says and his phone buzzes.

Somewhat ironically it’s Felicity who text.

_I hate him. Oliver was right._

“And her decision, apparently, is that you were right and Ray Palmer sucks so if you had just kept your mouth shut she would have come to the same conclusion you did and she wouldn’t be mad at you,” Barry says and his phone buzzes again.

_Don’t tell Oliver I said that. I don’t want to hear ‘I told you so’s’ for the next eight years._

“And don’t tell her I told you that, she doesn’t want to hear ‘I told you so’s’ from you. Oliver, put that damn phone away, you are not going to be an ass to Felicity!” he says, exasperated with Oliver’s attitude.

“She accidentally sent me those texts too,” Oliver says, at least complying with Barry’s order to put the phone away. “Did she tell you that she was mad at me?” he asks and to his credit he looked like he felt bad.

“No, but we’ve had enough discussions about our friends thinking that we’re delicate flowers that they need to shield from all to know that she’s not happy that once again someone has decided she can’t make her own decisions. It is, at best, insulting to her intelligence to assume that you know better than her about what’s best for her,” he says.

Oliver looks away, clenching his jaw, “I wasn’t trying to be insulting, I just worry,” he says.

Barry sighs, “I know, and so does she, but you can worry without telling her what to do. That is, might I add, exactly what you said about Iris earlier and you told me that I should be offended that she thinks that she can make my dating choices so why you think it’s acceptable to be Felicity’s Iris I don’t know. I get that you worry, but your job as friend is to be supportive of Felicity’s decisions, not be an asshole about them,” he says.

His phone buzzes with another text from Felicity.

_Omg. I want to punch him._

_OMG I SENT THOSE TEXTS TO OLIVER TOO OMG_

Barry smiles and sends back that he had the Oliver thing under control. He was pretty sure anyways. “Do you think Felicity would be offended if I sent her a text explaining how to punch properly so she can make sure Palmer’s nose hurts for the next week?” Oliver asks, looking at his phone. Barry was fairly certain Felicity was still accidentally double texting him and Oliver at the same time.

_I’m going to hurtle myself out the window_

He reads Felicity’s text and sighs, “I think at this point it might be necessary unless you want her to throw herself out a window,” he says.

“Yeah, I got that one too. How has she even managed to text us both at the same- oh, she accidentally added us to a group chat. Well I guess it doesn’t matter now,” he says, texting Felicity back.

Oliver draws Barry in close when he’s done with his strangely detailed instructions, which Barry received too because he happened to be in Felicity’s group chat. “Thank you for telling me I was being an ass,” he says.

Barry grins, “you’d be lost without me,” he says.

“Actually yeah, I’m pretty sure I would. You’ve taught me so much,” he says and he looks serious.

Barry blushes and looks away, “I haven’t really taught you that much,” he says, naturally falling into a state of self-depreciation. Oliver tilts his chin up, silently telling Barry to take that back, “I guess I’ve taught you some stuff,” he says, caving easily, more s when Oliver raises an eyebrow, “okay so maybe a lot of stuff.”

“Good boy,” Oliver says and pulls him in for a kiss.


	8. Merry Christmas, Kiss my Ass!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to write cute ass Christmas fluff. Instead ya'll got this. I am sorry friends. Also two musical quotes this week because I couldn't chose! Also the first was totally appropriate and I am glad I remembered this song existed before I posted this chapter because honestly it fits so well omg.

  
Now I hope you're happy with yourself,  
'Cause I'm not laughing  
Don't you think it's kind of crappy  
What you did this holiday?  
When I gave you my heart,  
You ripped it apart  
Like wrapping paper trash  
So I wrote you a song,  
Hope that you sing along  
And it goes,  
"Merry Christmas, kiss my ass!"

Merry Christmas Kiss My Ass, All Time Low

“You, Oliver Queen, do not know what it’s like to grow up ugly,” Barry says because he does _not_. Thea nods in agreement and so does Roy, they’ve all seen the adorable pictures of Oliver all over company things whenever they wanted to remind people they were humans and not just a soul sucking corporation.

“Do so, I was weird looking as a kid,” he says, totally serious too. He was not, _Barry_ grew up ugly, he knew the drill.

“Oliver you were a cutie, if anyone grew up ugly it was Tommy,” Thea says.

“Tommy wasn’t that bad,” Oliver says, “I looked like a troll,” he says, making a face.

“There is no way you grew up ugly, _I_ grew up ugly and the children were mean to me. It wasn’t my fault I was gangly and weird, they didn’t need to call me horse face and giraffe,” he says, wrinkling his nose.

Oliver, the asshole, starts laughing at him, “if you’re worried about being gangly and weird you haven’t grow out of that,” he says and Barry was offended.

“Oliver!” he says, pressing his hand to his heart like an offended soccer mom.

“What? I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, Tommy still goes on and on about you being seventy percent legs, Laurel told him to get a room with your legs a few days ago,” he says, “also I like your weirdness, keeps things interesting.”

“Yeah,” Thea mumbles behind them, “we hear _all_ about you two keeping things interesting,” she says.

“Oliver you better not tell your sister about our sex life, that’s weird,” Barry says, giving Oliver judgmental looks.

“Oh there’s no need for him to say anything, you’re loud, man,” Roy tells him and right. Yes he was.

“Sorry?” he says, his voice raising a bit at the end, making the statement sound like a question. “I could like… try to be quieter?” he suggests.

“No,” Oliver says with finality.

“But-”

“They can suffer. Thea, you have the birds, right? I don’t think mom would appreciate me shooting the china again,” he says. Barry frowns because how did one shoot china with arrows? And _why_ would someone shoot china with arrows?

“Yes I have your precious stuffed birds. They’re looking a little sad though, they’ve shot one too many times,” she says.

“I’ll get actual targets eventually; I’ve just been busy with school, my social life and the club to go get something new unless you’re offering, Thea,” Oliver says, raising an eyebrow at his sister.

“Ugh, no. I shoot your birds into the air and that is as involved with your archery hobby as I’m going to get,” she says.

“You guys suck,” Oliver mumbles, “but fine, go shoot birds so I can shoot birds.”

Thea and Roy go their separate ways, obviously having been worked into a routine, and Thea turns around to face Oliver, “you know mom might be a little more supportive of the archery thing if you didn’t go sulk and shoot stuff regularly. It’s a little worrying, Ollie,” she says and runs off to where ever she was supposed to be to shoot birds.

“I do not sulk and shoot stuff,” Oliver says, sulking and preparing to shoot stuff. Barry doesn’t bother saying anything and instead follows Oliver’s instructions to stay out of the falling bird-with-arrow-in-it zone.

He sits back wrapped in a warm coat and a red infinity scarf that did _not_ look like a neck condom, thank Oliver very much, to watch Oliver shoot birds for fun. Apparently he had taken up archery when he had managed to get himself rescued off that island he landed on and Thea found it amusing to shoot Oliver’s birds into the air so it had become something of a bonding thing for the two. Personally Barry came along because Oliver was wearing a green sweater and a pair of tight green pants that couldn’t possibly give him the proper range of movement needed for archery but his _ass_. It was practically illegal in those jeans and Barry was more than happy to show support by staring at Oliver’s body. Hell yeah. This was the _best_. Plus green looked great on Oliver and he was finally starting to show a little love for the colour.

Bird shooting, it turned out, was actually far more interesting than Barry anticipated and Oliver was _good_ , like really good. Barry didn’t even know a person could shoot that fast and it was pretty clear that both Thea and Roy were shooting birds into the air and in quick succession at that. Oliver aims and shoots quickly and methodically, clearly practiced in movements and the birds go down fast. He’d wonder how the hell the arrows didn’t go clear through whatever the birds were stuffed with but watching them fall it was pretty clear they had been re-stuffed with a material that the arrows went through, but not all the way.

Oliver’s focus was almost as impressive as his skill. Barry watches him track the birds carefully before letting arrows fly and as the birds go down Oliver is already focused on the next set of birds. Barry didn’t quite have the focus for that, he’d get bored or overwhelmed, whichever happened faster. It was kind of fun to watch though and when Roy and Thea had shot all the birds into the air they ran out onto the field to go collect the birds and arrows and then they repeat.

Eventually Roy and Thea get cold and complain at Oliver until he relents and they all head back to Oliver’s house. The size of the house was nuts to Barry let alone the yard, how anyone could be comfortable in something so large and impersonal he had no idea but Oliver and Thea seemed to manage. Roy, however, seemed to share Barry’s discomfort and the two of them were well aware that they didn’t belong though it appeared to bother Roy more than Barry. “You guys look festive, minus Thea,” Tommy says, apparently having shown up some time after they had all gone out with Oliver.

Roy and Oliver look irritated with this given that neither of them liked Christmas and neither of them had intended to resemble the holiday by wearing red and green respectively. Barry didn’t mind but he also liked Christmas and red because he wasn’t a party pooper like the other two. “We do not,” Oliver mumbles, glaring at Tommy.

Tommy shrugs, “suit yourself man, so what are you guys doing for Christmas?” he asks brightly, earning more glares from Roy and Oliver.

*

Barry hadn’t intended on saying anything to Oliver about Christmas because he knew he wasn’t fond of the holiday. Aside from letting Oliver know he wasn’t going to be around for a week or so he figured he’d leave Oliver to stew in his holiday hatred until he came back. Iris, however, had other plans and she went and told Joe about Oliver without actually mentioning names. This led to a phone call that he happened to get when he was at Oliver’s that led to him telling Joe no, he was not going to bring his significant other around for Christmas, and no, he did not need another sex talk. Why did everyone assume he needed a sex ed lesson? He was not a child despite what the cops at his co-op placement thought and apparently everyone else too.

This led to Oliver sulkily asking if Barry didn’t _want_ him around for Christmas, which obviously wasn’t the case, which led to him bringing Oliver home. This option, according to Oliver, was far better than sticking around his own home and Thea had had a similar thought process because she was going to Roy’s.  Iris looks freakishly happy about the whole thing and Barry’s about ninety percent sure she was trying to play Oliver off his own commitment issues to get him to dump Barry because she didn’t think Oliver was good enough for him. Personally he though that his dating life was his own decision but everyone else thought they should get their own say in his relationship, even Laurel and Tommy. Hell, even Cisco had his doubts and Cisco was a pretty open minded guy. He still helped with Oliver’s Christmas present though so he wasn’t going to complain too much about it.

Oliver was nice enough to drive him home, he had offered the ride to Iris too but she didn’t accept. Barry happened to know that she ended up taking a ride home with Eddy and he figured that Iris was going to finally tell her father they were dating. When he asks her about it though she makes faces and skirts the subject, which is exactly what she had been doing with poor Eddy for almost a year now. He complains about it on the way back to Joe’s place and tries to fill Oliver in on what to expect. Namely that he seemed to have a bad habit of dating cops kids and that Joe also had a gun he was unafraid to use so he should be familiar with all house exits. Oliver thought he was being dramatic and pointed out if he could survive Lance he should do just fine with Joe. Barry had doubts because he had meet officer Lance and even though he had some anger issues and was a bit of a loose cannon he was relatively harmless. Joe… well Joe was mostly harmless, just not with his kids and Barry was fairly certain Joe had considered Barry his own for some time now.

“Suit yourself,” Barry says as they pull up to Joe’s house. Well, here goes nothing. If all went well hopefully no one would end up dead or shot.

“Calm down Barry, I’m sure this will go fine,” Oliver says, looking far more calm than Barry expected him to.

When they come through the door he largely suspects that Oliver looks far calmer than Iris expects too and Barry decides to keep an eye on that. He understood she was just trying to help in her own weird way but he didn’t need her help, he was fine on his own and he was perfectly capable of making his own decisions contrary to popular belief. “Barry!” Joe yells from another room, “you’re finally here. You didn’t back out on brining your girlfriend did you?” he asks and _shit_. It suddenly occurs to Barry that in that conversation he and Joe had neither one of them had stuck a gender on Oliver and now he had gone and assumed Oliver was Olivia.

“Well, technically no,” he says back, half covering his face because _oh my god_ of course this would happen to him.

“What is ‘technically no’ supposed to mea- oh,” Joe says, walking into the entry way before stopping after catching sight of Oliver.

“Guess the ‘technically’ means I’m a little short of femininity,” Oliver says, making a really _really_ lame joke. Barry was going to die of embarrassment right here right now.

“Oh,” Joe says, looking surprised and a little lost.

“Did no one tell you?” Iris asks innocently and _really_? She thought Oliver being a guy was going to throw Joe off? Well, other than the initial surprise, that is.

“No, but you could have,” Joe says, giving Iris a pointed look.

“I figured Barry would,” she says, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Does it really matter?” Oliver asks, frowning.

“No,” Joe says and moves away from the subject as fast as he can, asking Barry about his final exams and co-op placement while not-so-subtly hinting that he should come back to Central. Barry tells him that exams were fine, his placement was also fine when people didn’t mistake him for a child, and he was happy in Starling, thanks.

They all manage to make it peaceful for like ten minutes before Iris brings up the whole ‘secret relationship’ thing and oh my god. _Why_ did she insist on doing this to him? “Personally I think he was just ashamed,” Iris says, smiling triumphantly at Oliver.

Joe raises an eyebrow at Oliver, “really?” he says in far too pleasant of a tone.

“Ugh-” Oliver says and Barry decides it was time to bail the poor guy out.

“That’s not true at all, Iris is exaggerating,” Barry says and Iris and Joe both give him unimpressed looks. “What? That isn’t what happened,” he says.

“Then what did happen?” Joe asks in that tone he used when he was trying to be passive aggressive.

“Ugh, well, um,” he says and turns to Oliver because he had no clue how to explain to his pseudo father that his relationship was mostly a long string of one night stands until like three weeks ago.

Oliver sighs, “well it started out as a one night stand-”

“It _what_?” Joe asks, not looking at all impressed and _oh my god why would he trust Oliver with this_? Oliver was horrible with all things communication he should have just expected him to sit  there and looks pretty like a damn rational human and now… now this.

“Iris is dating Eddy,” Barry blurts, “for like a year and a bit.”

Joes whips around to face Iris and she looks so guilty she can’t even deny it was true. Barry decides to flee with Oliver in tow.

*

Barry is curled under Oliver’s arm with hot chocolate and some marshmallow on his nose happily watching some Christmas movie Oliver was paying no attention to. Barry was far more interesting to watch anyways and after Iris had fled the house and Joe had taken off not long after Barry decided it was acceptable to sneak downstairs. They had ended up decorating the tree together, which somehow resulted in the tree and Oliver almost falling over. Barry had found that hilarious and took like eight hundred pictures because he was enthusiastic about all things Oliver and Christmas but especially if they were together.  

After Oliver almost successfully ruined Christmas Barry had decided that maybe watching movies with hot chocolate would be less hazardous to everyone’s health, tree included. Barry shuffles around a bit and looks up at Oliver, “sorry about Iris before, I think she’s executing some breakup plan but I’m kind of confused on how she’s going to manage that. I mean she’s definitely capable but like I know just as much about her as she does me so I could just retaliate every step of the way,” he says.

He leans forward and kisses Barry’s forehead, “but you wouldn’t, blurting out that she’s dating your dad’s partner aside. That was out of panic and I know you feel bad,” he says.

Barry looks terribly guilty and that was why Iris had decided that she could mess with Barry’s love life with no repercussions, because Barry had a conscience. “It was an accident! And someone had to do it! I think I helped her out,” he decides.

“Maybe in the long run,” Oliver says, for some reason trying to shield Barry from his own stupid decision. Granted Oliver got the impression from the ensuing argument that Iris and Joe had that Eddy wasn’t fond of the whole secret thing so the relationship was on the rocks anyways but still.

“I don’t get why she was so offended with us keeping our relationship secret, or you wanting it that way because that’s exactly what she’s doing to Eddy,” Barry says and yes, that had already occurred to Oliver but verbally shredding Barry’s best friend didn’t seem like a good way to keep in his good graces. “That’s really hypocritical,” Barry continues after a minute or so of silence.

“People are hypocrites,” Oliver says. He’d know, he was basically the king of hypocrites and all other things stupid.

“That’s a stupid reason,” Barry decides. He takes another drink of his hot chocolate and more marshmallow ends up on his nose and Oliver can’t help the warm fuzzy feeling he feels as he smiles down at Barry.

Perfect. Barry Allen was fucking perfect and Oliver didn’t know what to do. He hated Christmas; he always had because all it symbolized for him was having to fake it through a bunch of parties pretending to be the perfect kid in the perfect family. But it wasn’t like that with Barry, he didn’t have to put up some façade to appease him and even though Joe hadn’t initially been impressed with their relationship thanks to Iris he seemed to have come around, telling Oliver that he obviously grew out of his party boy days. He also seemed to think he and Barry were a great match but Oliver wasn’t so sure.

He was a broken emotional wreak with a tendency to self-destruct, Barry was bright, happy, open, optimistic, caring. Barry was everything he was not and he deserved so much more than anything Oliver could possibly offer. Barry himself didn’t seem to share this opinion, insisting that Oliver was so much more than he knew and that he was, in fact, lovable because Barry loved him. And god did he love Barry; with everything he had he loved him. He even participated in a cheesy ass mistletoe kiss for Barry’s sake and surprisingly he actually enjoyed it.

When he was with Barry things were warm and happy, almost as if he was in a happy bubble that that reality didn’t enter into and he knew it was only a matter of time. Nothing good ever lasted and this was no exception but it was nice for now. On the plus side Barry loved the shit ton of infinity scarves Oliver got him so he would stop stealing his roommate’s scarves. Oliver hadn’t really expected much from Barry so he had been pleasantly surprised when he had been presented with a set of arrows. “I made them myself!” Barry had proudly pronounced before telling him that they also blew up whatever they ended up imbedded in, which, awesome. Iris had loudly informed him that the arrows stayed _out_ of the kitchen and Barry warned him that they were probably all kinds of illegal so he probably shouldn’t tell anyone outside of Tommy and maybe Laurel about them. Barry knew Oliver well because there was no way he was not telling Tommy about exploding arrows and Tommy couldn’t keep a secret from Laurel to save his life.

*

Oliver didn’t do perfect well, he was terrible at being anything but a screw up and he was feeling the pressure. He knew logically that Barry didn’t have any of the expectations that Oliver had invented in his own mind but that knowledge didn’t seem to make him any less anxious. He didn’t say anything to Barry, obviously, because Barry didn’t need to be burdened with Oliver’s own stupidity so instead he looked for a way out of his current situation, a way to get rid of that damned anxiety. He didn’t really expect to find the solution in his club but he kind of did.

*

Barry was there by chance really, Felicity was trying to avoid Ray Palmer and she had only been half successful. She had decided to bring Barry along with her so maybe Ray would assume that they were together or something, which hadn’t happened because Ray seemed to exude endless confidence. Barry, who was a pretty enthusiastic guy himself, had been exhausted with him in like five minutes and the excursion had lasted like two hours before Felicity claimed Oliver had called. Oliver had not called, actually he hadn’t really text Barry either but he was at work so Barry figured he was busy with… whatever running a club entailed. He had no idea, just that Oliver didn’t seem to hate it, which didn’t really say much.

“I swear to god if he extends his vacation here I will scream,” Felicity says, looking largely unimpressed.

“He would do that?” Barry asks, mostly because that seemed a little creepy when his date showed little interest and even brought a third wheel along.

“Yes, and I know, that’s weird,” she says, rolling her eyes, “I should have listened to Oliver.” It’s at that moment that they both happen to look across the street to said person’s club to see Oliver and some random person making out half in the street. At first Barry kind of hopes he gets hit by a car but then he thinks that’s kind of mean.

“Wow, in two seconds you’re night got way worse than mine,” Felicity says, looking at Barry with a pitying expression.

He frowns, “did you not remember that you brought me along on your date with Palmer?” he asks, “because my night was already shit.” They stare at each other for a minute and Barry smiles brightly at her, causing Felicity to blink a few times in confusion.

“Oh my god, you’ve been replaced by a pod person,” she says.

“I have not!” Barry says, offended.

“I’m not sure if you saw that, but Oliver was totally making out with someone, in _public_ no less,” she says, sounding deeply offended.

Barry shrugs,” its fine,” he says and Felicity’s eyebrows damn near hit her hairline, “it was bound to happen sooner or later, he does have a reputation,” he says. He knows he should be feeling _something_ but he just… isn’t. It was like all his emotions had turned off all at once and he was just sort of… _there_. It was probably better this way, he was sure, so he figured he should probably avoid actually dealing with any of this for as long as humanly possible.

“Ugh. No, this is not kay and I am going to kick Oliver’s _ass_ ,” she yells, all but throwing her purse at Barry, who barely catches it before Felicity is storming off to presumably beat Oliver up.

“Uhh,” he says, realizing it was too late to call Felicity back because she was all but shoving herself up Oliver’s nose now and oh god he looks up and they make eye contact. If only the real world had video game glitches that would allow him to sink into the ground and never be seen again.

He doesn’t know what to do so he awkwardly waves.

*

Laurel opens the door to find one very pissed off Felicity and a smiling Barry holding a bottle of wine. “Oliver cheated on him and now he’s a pod person,” Felicity says.

“Am not,” Barry says, looking mildly offended by the comment and oh, Laurel knew the feeling. When his emotions finally caught up with him that was going to suck.

“I appreciate the wine guys, but we’re going to need something way stronger than that. Come in,” she says and opens the door wider to let them in. “Tommy!” she yells and he appears with his tooth brush still in his mouth, “go kick your best friends ass, that fucker cheated on Barry,” she says.

Tommy throws his hands up and mumbles something, “okay I think he said ‘oh my god I left him alone for one night’ but for all I know he was complaining about how dry the ham I attempted to cook was so. Come in, and let’s get wasted and watch Kill Bill with ice cream.”

Hey, ever just say fuck it?  
Maybe I'll drink this all away in buckets  
Oh hey, might as well say fuck it  
I wanna hurt myself until I love it

Astoria, Marianas Trench     

                  


	9. Ice Cold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Juuuuuuuuust because I feel bad for where I left y'all in the last chapter. Also I had a lot of muse for this so off they go, trying to do stuff. 
> 
> Also two quotes again because I felt like it and also I love both sections of this song so. Have at it, y'all.

I'm so happy for you  
I could cry  
Yeah, I'm so elated  
Cross my heart and hope to die  
I don't think about you every night  
Before I close my eyes  
I'm so happy for you baby,  
I could cry.

Happy, Saving Jane

He was _fine_ , really. He wasn’t even mad, not really though everyone told him he should be. He just didn’t see the point when Oliver hadn’t meant to break his heart, not really, Oliver meant to screw himself over and Barry got caught in the crossfire. It wasn’t something to be mad at; it was something to be pitied. Which he thought was worse. Literally everyone else did not think this and Felicity had already gotten her own two cents in though she fully intended on yelling at Oliver more, and Laurel was furious. Tommy had run off on Laurel’s instruction to, and this was a quote, ‘murder some fucking sense into your idiot friend’ and he hadn’t returned by the time Barry left the next day without a hangover. Which, thank god, he didn’t really feel like crying at the drop of a hat all day.

When he gets home he knows that Felicity must have text either Cisco or Caitlin because he was greeted at the door by a worried Cisco and Caitlin and a victorious looking Iris. “I _told_ you,” she says triumphantly and he slams the door shut behind him, causing them all to jump.

“Shut up Iris,” he says, kicking his shoes off. He pushes past them and into the house further, fully intending on barricading himself in his room for the next eight years except he couldn’t do that because he had a job, and school.

He walks into the kitchen to get himself a drink and unintentionally hears the conversation in the next room. “He told me to shut up,” Iris says sadly.

“Well yeah, instead of asking if he was okay you decided it was a good idea to rub that you were right in his face. Telling you to shut up was pretty generous of him, actually,” Cisco says. Go Cisco, Barry agreed fully. He loved Iris, and he knew that she was only trying to stop him from getting hurt but she didn’t seem to understand that she was hurting him with her actions too.

“Well I _was_ right, I wasn’t trying to be rude,” she says and _really_? Even Barry thought that was unforgivable and he was generally a pretty generous person.

“No offense Iris, we know you’re trying to help, but do you really think that he cares that you were right? And was it really appropriate to point that out? He needs support, not someone pointing out that he was wrong the whole time and should feel bad for not seeing it, that isn’t fair,” Caitlin says. Points for her too, at least _someone_ actually cared about his wellbeing.

Well, that wasn’t exactly fair, he knew Iris cared, she just chose to show it in a shitty way recently. They continue but he goes off into his room to try and sleep this off.

*

“I don’t know, I _panicked_ ,” Oliver says when Tommy asks him what the fuck he was thinking.

Tommy doesn’t seem to accept this as a proper answer because he rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “Then _talk_ to someone Oliver, you don’t go and destroy a relationship because you can’t handle that things are going well, you talk to your damn partner about your anxiety. That’s what makes a relationship work and even you know that because you’ve told me that. Why is it that you have such a hard time actually doing that?” he asks, sounding a little desperate, like he was trying hard to understand Oliver and failing.

Story of his life.

“I didn’t want to bug Barry with my shit,” he says eventually and Tommy lets out a harsh laugh.

“Oh that’s rich man, like you didn’t want to bug Laurel with you shit so you decided to fuck her sister? Come on, we both know that isn’t why you did what you did so give it up and find a real reason. And even if, _even_ if, that actually was what you were trying to do, do you really believe that cheating on Barry and throwing his heart back into his face so hard you managed to knock his emotions entirely out of his body successfully left him out of your shit? Because news flash Oliver, you threw him head first into it and dragged him around in it for good measure. So be real, what the hell happened?” he asks.

“I _told_ you,” Oliver says, voice rising in frustration, “I panicked. It wasn’t going to last anyways, something was bound to fuck it up, I wasn’t wrong,” he says.

Tommy lets out a deep sigh and rubs his hands over his face, “you fucking idiot, something went wrong because _you made it go wrong_. You don’t get to say you were right when you were the one who made your own self-fulfilling prophecy. You don’t get to do that to Barry, you’ve put that poor guy through enough. If you want things in your life to stop failing then stop destroying them Oliver, you complain all the time about how much your life sucks and I get it, it does suck. But you’re the one who makes it suck; if you stopped sabotaging everything you did maybe you would actually have something left to enjoy but no. You’re so afraid of failure you, what, establish it as your baseline so when something succeeds you’re pleasantly surprised?” he asks.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Oliver says and he’s actually kind of surprised Tommy doesn’t hit him for that.

“Thank god I have my shares in the club because you’d run that into the ground too,” he says, rolling his eyes again.

“I actually kind of like the club,” he says and Tommy snorts.

“Exactly, that means it’s only a matter of time before you fuck that up and run it into the ground too, which would completely fuck over your relationship with me. Come to think of it I’m surprised you haven’t done that already given how much you just fucking hate happiness. God forbid Oliver Queen is happy for more than five seconds or he’ll go fuck everything up just to prove himself right, everything does suck. I am so god damn mad at you Oliver, you create all these problems for yourself and blame everyone else when you are your problem, and your solution,” he says.

Oliver frowns, “did you steal that last bit from Bridesmaids?” he asks.

“Yes I did because it was good advice and Megan was right. Now that I’m done yelling at you I kind of want to watch that movie and maybe by the end of it you’ll learn something! Namely not to be Kristen Wiig,” he says.

“Yeah I got that Tommy, there was no need to point it out,” he says.

“Well I figured I would because I know how to communicate my ideas, maybe you should learn something from me!” he says with emphasis.

*

He wasn’t really expecting anything but it still kind of hurt when he didn’t get a text from Oliver. He got it, really, what the hell were you supposed to say to someone you cheated on? _Lol sorry I stuck my tongue down someone else’s throat xx_. Like no, obviously that was not a good idea but he sort of wanted… _something_ even if he didn’t know what. A reason maybe? But no, he knew Oliver well enough to know the reason. He had a tendency to screw up the things he cared about because he thought they were doomed to fail anyways and Barry was naïve enough to think he’d be the exception. Well, Oliver was right and Barry was wrong, obviously everything in Oliver’s life was doomed to fail so long as Oliver had any say in it.

Cisco, at least, was something of a godsend because he didn’t try and treat Barry like glass the way Caitlin did and Iris was avoiding him for now, licking her wounds. “I swear to god if one more old white lady calls me a ‘cute little Mexican’ I will find it within myself to punch an old person,” Cisco says with meaning.

Barry, despite himself, laughs, “oh please let me be there for that, seriously, I want to see if my theory of old ladies wearing wigs is legit,” he says.

Cisco sighs, “we’ll see. But seriously, ‘cute little Mexican’ Barry, I’m not even from Mexico, I’m from New York straight from my mother’s uterus. Not that there’s anything wrong with Mexico but still, really, ‘slightly brown’ does not mean ‘from Mexico’,” Cisco looks annoyed, rolling his eyes until something behind Barry and then he winces.

Barry looks behind himself to see Oliver hesitantly sit in a seat that was in Barry’s section, “does he know which tables you serve?” Cisco asks.

Barry sighs, “yeah,” he says and leaves Cisco to figure out the rest. And Oliver claimed Palmer had weird consent issues and yet here he was, slaking Barry.

That wasn’t really fair, Barry’s schedule was fairly predictable and today happened to be one of the days he sometimes got off so Oliver didn’t actually know if he was here or not but still.  

“Do you want me to punch him in the face? Because I have enough old lady rage to punch Oliver Queen in the face and break something, probably my own hand, but still. We can pretend it was Oliver’s face,” Cisco says and unlike Iris he wasn’t trying to be weirdly protective, he was genuinely trying to help.

“Nah, I’ll go deal with it I guess,” he says, giving Cisco an irritated look before taking off to go deal with Oliver.

To his credit Oliver looked rather nervous with Barry’s approach but Barry figures the best way to deal with Oliver was to not deal with him at all. That meant treating him like a normal customer rather than that asshat who decided to cheat on him two days before. Oliver seems thrown with Barry’s chipper attitude but Barry was a big fan of ‘fake it until you make it’ and maybe of he faked it hard enough he wouldn’t want to either strangle Oliver or make out with him. Frankly his own emotions were giving him whiplash let alone Oliver.

He flits around to the other customers too, trying his best not to get annoyed at the picker ones. If there was anything he had learned working in food service it was that the customer can fuck off. Eventually Oliver forces him to deal with stuff because he blurts out a shit apology and assumes Barry hates him, which, maybe that was fair but it wasn’t true and Barry liked to think Oliver knew it. “I don’t hate you,” he says, “I feel bad for you. It must be a lonely existence thinking no one really loves you, so much so that you go about ruining relationships to make people hate you just to prove yourself right.”

“Ohh,” says the guy behind Oliver, “ _ice_ cold.” Barry knew the guy, he came in frequently and he was pretty sure his name was ‘Snart’, which was enough for Barry to feel bad for him. Kids must have been cruel because that was a name that rhymed with a _lot_ of unpleasant things. Oliver gives the guy a dirty look and for a second Barry lets his emotions show, rolling his eyes at Oliver’s dramatics before taking off to go do other things.

*

Oliver was going to murder the guy behind him and not just because he decided to comment on his attempt at an apology to Barry either. Well, that was most of it, but he had also decided that flirting with Barry was a fun thing to do and it was driving Oliver up the fucking wall. He knew full well he didn’t have the right to be irritated with that but Barry was _his_ damnit, even if he did really fuck it all up. To make matters worse Barry was flirting back though Oliver wasn’t selfish enough to assume he was doing it to purposely annoy him. He was probably just trying to earn a good tip and Oliver was tempted to leave the entirety of his trust fund to Barry just to get him to stop that.

But no, the guy behind him _insists_ on chatting with Barry longer than necessary and Barry must have particularly bitchy customers because he sticks around longer than necessary too. If it was anyone but Barry he would have assumed they were doing it to fuck with him, it wasn’t like he didn’t deserve it, but it wasn’t in Barry’s nature to be malicious. Oliver does his best to focus on something else, anything else, but all he gets is dirty looks from Cisco and that just makes him feel bad.

Rightfully so but still.

He had come here out of a misguided notion that maybe he could like… talk to Barry or something. Communicate, that’s what Tommy had literally yelled at him for forty five minutes, and Laurel had taken far longer than that to tear strips off him up and down. He had purposefully chosen a night that Barry only sometimes worked hoping that he wasn’t there but he had no such luck and Barry had been so… so… _pleasant_ to him. He hadn’t really known what to do with that so he had blurted out, “sorry I cheated on you, I get that you hate me, but I’m sorry.” And then. And _then_.

Then Barry went mom on him and dropped the ‘I don’t hate you, I feel bad for you’ line and that _hurt_. He had been expecting… well he didn’t know what to expect because his go-to was violence, even Felicity had threatened to rip his dick off, but Barry wasn’t a violent person. Instead Barry went straight for the metaphorical throat and tore it out, which Asshat decided to point out.

And now Oliver was steadily growing more and more irritated with the guy behind him and that steak knife he was holding was looking like a pretty tempting weapon but his guilt kept him firmly planted in his seat. Barry had been nothing but pleasant to him, he didn’t hate him, he wasn’t acting like an immature jackass, and Oliver felt he owed it to Barry to at least show Barry the same respect Barry was showing him. Even if he was too late and he didn’t deserve Barry’s respect anyways.

Finally, mercifully, the guy behind him decides to leave and as he slips out of his seat he presses a folded piece of paper into Barry’s hand, his number no doubt. Oliver expects Barry to toss it but instead he puts the paper into his pocket, his gaze flicking to Oliver as he does it. He was going to have to rethink Barry not being a naturally malicious person because that felt worse than his words had, even if he had no right to be hurt by Barry’s non-action action.

*

It was a bad idea and he knew it but he felt bad and Snart was pleasant enough even if his name was _Snart_. Well, Leonard Snart but still, it was a terrible name that someone would expect a particularly lame super villain to have. Also he kind of had this weird obsession with parkas but still, he was pleasant enough, and coffee never hurt anyone. Plus he was funny and if there was anything Barry needed after stewing for a week and a half in ‘Oliver Queen hasn’t called me’ hell it was a laugh.

So he had called the guy and agreed to coffee because why not, right? It was innocent enough and Barry had some free time on his hands now that most of his course load was his co-op placement. He didn’t really expect the end up making out with the guy behind a Starbucks because literally what the hell, Barry Allen? He also didn’t expect someone to run full force into him and nearly knock him over because apparently he was standing on a damn ice patch. Thankfully Leonard seemed to have better reflexes than Barry and caught his flailing self before he ate ice, snow bank, and trash. “Thanks,” Barry says, “I have no idea how you keep your balance on ice.” He could barely keep his balance on cement.

Leonard smiles, “winter and I are one,” he says.

“Yeah well winter can fuck off,” he mumbles, “no offence,” he says to Leonard because for some reason he actually liked winter. Outside of Christmas Barry hated the season because it meant falling on his ass for months. Oliver used to catch him but now the fucker had abandoned him.

Someone clears their throat and Barry looks over to find Oliver standing there with a smile on his face that was obviously faked, “ugh, sorry?” he says in a chipper tone that was also very fake.

“Uhh, thanks?” Barry says, sounding far snippier than intended. Whoops he wasn’t apologizing. That was kind of mean but he still wasn’t going to apologize.

“Well,” Oliver says, looking between the two, “umm. I hope you two are happy,” he says and runs off, nearly slipping on ice as he goes.

“Well that was awkward,” Leonard says and yeah, no shit, Oliver had just wished them well together and for some reason that made Barry _really_ mad when it shouldn’t have. His stupid brain informs him that he wants Oliver to fight for him but he reminds his stupid brain that that was ridiculous. Oliver did not need to fight for him and also if Oliver got into a literal fist fight with Leonard he would not be impressed.

Oh who the hell was he kidding, that would be hilarious to watch if they were on ice.

*

“I wanted to rip the guy’s head off and I get it, I have no right but… but… _ahhhhh_ ,” Oliver says, shaking with rage he shouldn’t feel.

“Really?” Laurel says, perched on the arm of the couch like a bird, “does it bother you that Barry kissed someone else?” she says sarcastically.

“Yes, Laurel, we established that,” he says, irritated with her.

“Maybe you should like. Not rip that guy’s head off,” Tommy says, being totally useless.

“Does it make you mad that Barry stuck his tongue down someone else’s throat? I wonder if Barry knows how that feels,” she says, extra heavy on the sarcasm there.

“I _get_ it Laurel, can we not?” he asks through gritted teeth.

“Okay, I think maybe we all need to calm down-” Tommy starts but Laurel cuts him off.

“Want to see pictures of Barry kissing the weird dude in the parka?” Laurel asks, all but shoving her phone up Oliver’s nose and sure enough there was a picture of Barry kissing the parka guy and how did she even _get_ that?

“Oh for gods sakes Laurel, was that really necessary?” Tommy asks, pulling the phone from Laurel’s hand.

“Yes it was, he hurt Barry and god damnit I want Barry to hurt him worse!” Laurel yells.

“Is that maybe because Oliver did the same thing to you? But kind of worse. Actually a lot worse but still, you get it, you were there,” Tommy says.

“So what if that’s true, this asshole comes storming in here complaining about Barry making out with some asshole in a parka behind Starbucks apparently he doesn’t even get the irony,” she says.

“I actually do,” he says but Laurel cuts him off before he can continue.

“Then shut up about it, you don’t have the right!” she yells.

“Umm. This is going nowhere but Oliver she’s kind of right, and I mean you haven’t even done anything to try and repair your relationship with Barry so you can’t really go complain about stuff if you aren’t even going to try and work it out,” Tommy says.

“Wait, I can do that? Work things out?” he asks because truly, he was unaware.

“Oh my god Tommy I am going to rip your idiot best friend’s head off and shove it up his ass because he’s such a shithead I might as well make it literal,” she yells.

Tommy sighs, “Laurel you should go buy one of those little mini cake things you like, that might make you feel better and Oliver. You’re fucking kidding me right?”

Oliver expects Tommy to continue he doesn’t so Oliver says, “no?” in a questioning tone.

“Wow. Okay. Yes, you can work things out with Barry, provided Barry wants to work things out, if not then you’re fucked but you kind of already thought you were so I mean you’re no worse for wear there,” he says like any of that made any sense at all.

“But… I tried to apologize and it didn’t really go well,” he says.

Laurel groans, “I’m buying like ten of those mini cakes and even that might not be enough to deal with your bullshit,” Laurel tells him, giving him one last dirty look before taking off.

“Once. Just to clarify you tried _one_ time,” Tommy says.

“Yeah?” he says, his tone suggesting that was a question instead of a statement.

“Oh my god you are a lost fucking cause, man. Communication is an ongoing process you god damn cheese brain, you can’t try one time and give up, and you can expect Barry to be pretty pissed off at you, he had good reason. But you can at least try to see if he’s willing to like… work something out, he seems like a pretty forgiving guy, he might actually go for it,” Tommy says though he doesn’t look like he was much faith in that statement. “I mean Laurel forgave you. Until recently but in her defense you kind of walked into that.”

“So… to clarify I can actually make some sort of attempt to try and win Barry back?” he asks.

Tommy rolls his eyes, “yes you moron, go talk to seventy percent legs, and please for the love of god use your words. Tell him how you feel and shit, it’s good for the soul, now run along and avoid Laurel like the plague.”

*

Iris finds him in his bedroom, apparently done licking her wounds now. “Okay, I don’t mean to be judgy-” she starts but Cisco cuts her off.

“If you need to start a sentence with that you’re probably being judgy,” he warns.

Iris cringes, “okay. I’m trying not to be an ass, I support you and stuff, but maybe you’re moving on a little too fast? Maybe you should like, sleep with the weird parka guy and get it over with. It’s good for the soul actually,” she says and _what_?

“Umm,” Barry says for lack of a better response.

“I’m not trying to be mean, I just… maybe just sex,” she says. She had no idea, of course, that that was exactly how he and Oliver ended up in this… thing. He doesn’t get the chance to explain that, however, because someone knocks at the door.

He practically runs for it because he had no idea how to handle his friend telling him to only have sex with Leonard. He isn’t sure what he’s expecting but finding Oliver Queen at the door was definitely not on his shortlist. “Uhh, hey?” he asks, as if that was a question or something.

“Oliver Queen,” Iris says from behind him, judgy face on and ready to tear Oliver to shreds.

“This would be a good time to practice not being an asshole Iris and follow Barry’s lead and not freak out. You can start by saying something positive,” Cisco suggests.

Iris smiles wide, “I hope you die.”

“Positive, Iris,” Cisco says in a judgy tone.

“Quickly,” she adds.

Oliver frowns, “umm, thank you?”

Barry sighs and decides to but the poor guy out of his misery, “what do you want?” he asks perhaps a little too sharply. Or maybe he wasn’t going to put Oliver out of his misery.

Oliver, to his credit, flinches, “umm. It occurs to me that I kind of love you and even though I’ve been a shit human Tommy informs me that this could maybe be salvageable?” Barry gets the impression that that wasn’t supposed to be a question and it kind of irritates him that Oliver phrased it like one.

“And you made that a question because…?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Uhh,” Oliver says, glancing away for a second, thinking through his answer. “Because I have no idea how you feel about that and the last time I made assumptions it didn’t go so well,” he says.

Barry considers it but that was actually a really good answer so he steps aside to let Oliver in, “this does not mean that anything is salvageable,” he says even though a good part of him was singing to the high heavens. He told that part to shut up because the last time he decided to relationship with Oliver it ended horribly.

I can walk around with a pretty face on  
Even when I'm black and blue  
What's the point in telling everybody  
I'm not over you.

Happy, Saving Jane


	10. Not Alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully this all progressed realistically, I wrote this half asleep so if it doesn't I blame that lol. Actually I accept full responsibility but still. Hopefully all went well lol. 
> 
> Also this one is a bit short but hey, its something :)

I need to know that when I fail you'll still be here,  
'Cause if you stick around I'll sing you pretty sounds,

I just want to know what's on your mind,  
I used to say, "I want to die before I'm old,"  
But because of you I might think twice.

Twenty One Pilots, We Don't Believe What's on T.V

Oliver clearly has no god damn clue where to start and to be honest neither does Barry so he figures he’d jump right in. “Well it isn’t as if this can get any worse, Oliver, you might as well tell me what’s on your mind,” he says, perhaps a little too harshly. He was pretty sure that Iris and Cisco were outside the room listening in but if he chose to call them on it they’d run before he got the chance.

“That… doesn’t really inspire confidence,” he says and Barry’s first instinct was to tell him that _he_ didn’t really inspire confidence but that wasn’t really fair. He was the one that let Oliver in; it wouldn’t make any sense to throw that back in Oliver’s face when he was trying to make an effort even if he was seriously lost.

“Well it should, I mean once you hit bottom the only place you can go is up so,” Barry shrugs because it was true.

“Huh. That was surprisingly comforting. I, uh, to be completely honest I have no idea what I’m doing I’m just sort of… here,” he says and that was no help at all. Apparently Barry was going to have to drag some semblance of a conversation out of him.

“You could start with an actual apology,” he says, trying to make some attempt to guide Oliver.

Oliver wrinkles his nose, “really? I mean I get the sentiment but is a five letter word really going to do anything to make up for the fact that I cheated on you for no good reason? It seems kind of stupid to start in a place that isn’t actually going to help either one of us out in the long run,” he says.

Barry lifts his hands into the air, “he speaks!” he says with far too much enthusiasm. “So okay, that’s something we can actually work with. Thank god, I was expecting this to take seventy years but you surpassed my expectations,” they were sort of at next to zero but he wasn’t going to tell Oliver that. “You said you had no ‘good’ reason to cheat, which implied you had a reason in general so like… we can start with that,” he says.

Oliver looks at the ground, “does that really matter?” he mumbles.

“Probably, yeah, just because you don’t think your actions were logical doesn’t mean they’re unimportant, same goes for the reason behind them. Why ever you decided it was a good idea to cheat on me is literally the cause of all of this… messy end of relationship so why?” he asks. He doesn’t expect  the answer to be logical but the answer Oliver provides is a little more illogical than he thought it would be.

“Everything seemed so good you know? Well yeah, you were there, that was a stupid statement but still. It set me on edge and I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop because nothing good in my life ever seems to last long and, well, then I screwed everything up,” he says.

Barry takes a second to process that stupidity so he doesn’t out and out tell Oliver he was being a fucking moron because that was rude. “So you were worried that something was going to go wrong and instead of oh, I don’t know, doing literally anything else you decided to screw everything up yourself? How long did you feel like that? You know what that doesn’t really matter, not exactly, how long have you had this issue because this situation is basically the same thing you did to Laurel,” he says.

Oliver thinks his answer over before shrugging, “always I guess, I don’t really remember a time where I didn’t wonder when something was going to ruin whatever good was in my life. It’s been worse after the island though,” he says.

That wasn’t really surprising and it explained a lot, actually. “Well that makes so much more sense than just cheating out of nowhere,” he says.

“That doesn’t excuse my actions,” Oliver says quickly before Barry can go on.

“No it doesn’t, but it does make them understandable to a point, which isn’t the same as ‘excusable’ by the way. You’ve told me about your anxiety issues before, and even if you hadn’t mentioned a low self-confidence I would have been able to put that together myself. I can’t just ignore those things as if they exist separately from your actions because they don’t and yeah, you can argue that that I shouldn’t care about those issues because you kind of broke my heart. But it would be selfish of me to only consider my own feelings-”

“ _You_ , _selfish_? Do you not remember that _I’m_ the one who broke _your_ heart with my own selfish actions?” he asks, looking and sounding irritated with Barry.

He rolls his eyes, “yes I’m well aware of your actions, I’m not blind, and I can follow along with your behaviors just fine thanks. I’m aware that you acted selfishly and I full well expect you not to do that again to anyone let alone me. But you don’t get to pick and choose how your anxiety affects you and I’m not just going to ignore that because it’s inconvenient for me. That’s cruel, and besides, at any point I can walk away from you, it isn’t as if you can leave your own mind when it starts to inconvenience you,” he points out. He was still pissed off, which he’d get to soon enough, but that didn’t eliminate his ability to sympathize and use his head.

Oliver’s jaw clenches and he looks away, “I think you’re looking for an excuse to forgive me,” he says.

Barry shrugs, “maybe. But what makes you think that’s what’s happening rather than you looking for any excuse for me not to forgive you, and for you not to forgive yourself? This is going to sound harsh Oliver, but if you aren’t prepared to let me care about you then why are you here? You don’t need to love you for me to love you, but you do need to have enough trust and faith in me to understand that when I tell you that I care that I actually do. That isn’t going to be easy for you, and that’s going to involve you telling me when you doubt me so we can deal with it and I can do my best to help you. I can’t just know when you doubt stuff; I’m not a mind reader, and it’s easier to deal with things before they happen than after,” he points out.

“I don’t think you should have to deal with my every insecurity,” Oliver says.

“As opposed to doing what, Oliver? This? Because I think we can both agree that this sucks and neither of us like it so if you’re going to sit there and stew in some random thought that has occurred to you to the point of completely screwing over an entire relationship than yeah, maybe we should talk about it. I get that you have some bizarre notion that if you talk about stuff you’re going to somehow be a burden on the people around you but that isn’t true. Especially when you consider the fact that when we all finally find out what _did_ happen before you went and did something incredibly stupid the damage is huge. If you want to take the path of least resistance then voicing whatever it is that’s wrong is the way you want to go because then everyone can deal with the problem rather than the aftermath,” he says.

It’s pretty clear that Oliver had no response to that, nor did he seem to believe Barry’s argument no matter how logical it seemed. “What don’t you believe?” he asks when Oliver doesn’t say anything right away.

Oliver frowns, “this… shouldn’t be this easy,” he says finally, “it took Laurel forever to forgive me.”

“People react differently to everything Oliver, I’m not Laurel and I can’t harbor anger like her. It’s exhausting and I’m done with it, it’s not in my nature to act the way she does. Plus what happened with her left her with way more emotional baggage than what you left me with, especially because it’s difficult to be so angry at someone who’s been though a huge emotional trauma. It’s not exactly like she could rage at you like she wanted to, that would only make you worse and as much as she wanted you to suffer it was probably pretty clear to her that you _were_ suffering, just not in the way that she wanted you to.”

“What does that even mean, suffer the way she wanted me to?” Oliver asks and at least there was that.

“She probably wanted you to feel the way she did, not watch your father die, almost watch her sister die, end up abandoned on an island for a week before discovery, and come back to a situation that were weren’t prepared for on the best of days let alone after all that. That’s a bit much but it isn’t like all that eliminated her anger so it probably left her in a really confusing situation,” he says. He sure as hell wouldn’t have wanted to be her after all of that. He didn’t even know what he would do if all of that happened to him in the space of a week, probably give up on life and become a full time couch potato at Joe’s until Iris kicked his ass back into shape. That didn’t even include the Tommy thing even if that worked out for her in the end.

“And you don’t want me to suffer? Because if I were you I’d want you to suffer,” Oliver says. God if only Oliver knew more than five words, that would make this considerably easier.

“No Oliver, I don’t want you to suffer, you do a good enough job of making yourself suffer as it is. If you’re asking if I’m mad than yeah, hell yeah I’m mad. Instead of talking to me, or Tommy or literally anyone you decided the best option was to rip my heart out of my chest and throw it back in my face. And to make matters worse I know you didn’t intend to do that, you thought you were only going to hurt yourself because you don’t really believe I care which makes me wonder what, exactly, I did to give you _that_ impression-”

“Nothing,” Oliver says, “you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Well I must have done something, you cheated on me, and I know you seem to think that was all you but that doesn’t even make sense, it takes two to screw things up,” he says. It was basic logic, only he didn’t know _what_ he did.

“No, you didn’t, that’s the point. You’re so… so helpful, and open, and warm, and happy, and… and _good_. I’m none of those things and I don’t know what to do with someone who’s so willing to deal with all my shit when I don’t bring anything to the table, there is literally nothing about me that could be desirable. What the hell am I supposed to do with someone who is so clearly too good for me and totally doesn’t see it? I don’t deserve someone as good as you and I can’t for the life of me understand why you would lower yourself so much,” Oliver says. If Barry was honest he didn’t even know Oliver could talk so much in such a short amount of time and he gets the urge to laugh at the absurdity but he didn’t. He had a feeling Oliver would not appreciate that whatsoever.

He sighs and takes a second to process what Oliver had said. “Has it occurred to you that the way you destroy your relationships out of some… misguided understanding of yourself is a form of self-harm? And there’s lots about you that’s desirable, like your passion for weirdly specific pieces of media, even if I have no clue what you’re talking about you obviously enjoy the subject. Or your focus and attention to detail to things you enjoy doing, like archery, and your obvious love for Thea even if you did lock her in a cage that one time, and the way you try so hard to attempt to make up for your wrong doings. You didn’t need to make up to Laurel the way you did, but you knew how badly you hurt her and you were kind enough to give her closure. And you’re here, trying to deal with this mess when you didn’t need to come here and talk to me. And when you ran into me and Lenard, literally, you tried to act happy and you wishes us well even though it was really obvious that that was hard for you, you didn’t need to do that either. There’s a lot more I could list but I’ll spare you, the point is that you _do_ bring a lot to this relationship and just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there,” he says meaningfully.

Oliver shifts uncomfortably, unsure what to do with so many compliments at once but he doesn’t refuse the comments so that was something at least. Granted Barry had given examples for half of the things he listed so it was at least a little bit more difficult to refute what Barry was saying. “O…kay,” Oliver says, “so I guess I kind of wonder if you want to work things out?” he asks.

Barry laughs and smiles softly, “the answer to that should have been pretty obvious when I let you in. Honestly Oliver, why would I have spent all this time explaining things to you and trying to talk to you? Why put so much effort into something I have no desire to work out? So yeah, Oliver, my feelings for you didn’t go anywhere and yeah I’m still kind of pissed off at you but we can talk about that, maybe later, I’m kind of emotionally exhausted now,” he says.

For a second Oliver doesn’t do anything but then he walks over and hugs Barry tight, pulling him as close as he could without actually crushing him. Oliver clings tightly, arms wrapped around Barry like he was worried Barry would disappear the moment he let go. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says quietly.

“I believe you,” Oliver says back, burring his face in Barry’s hair.


	11. Balance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used to think people were joking when people talked about characters taking their writing in way different directions because that makes no sense. But alas, here we are and the characters have taken my writing in a totally different direction than i initially had planned so. Hopefully y'all still like it even if it might not have been what you were expecting! Trust me, me too lol.

If you want to  
I can save you  
I can take you away from here  
So lonely inside  
So busy out there  
And all you wanted  
was somebody who cares

All You Wanted, Michelle Branch

Barry wasn’t much of a fighter but the idiot he worked with had no god damn clue what he was doing and when Barry had pointed it out he got called a child so Barry left him to deal with the consequences. Inevitably someone noticed the screw up and _then_ blamed Barry, which, no, and they were so hard pressed to believe he did it that they needed video footage to prove that it was not, in fact, him that screwed up the blood work. At least he got the satisfaction of watching the other guy nearly get fired for the screw up even if he did get called a child at least three more times that day.

It was safe to say that Barry didn’t have a very good day so when he gets home to find Iris sitting on his best he’s expecting the worst. “Hey, Iris,” he says somewhat wearily. So far she hadn’t said anything about giving Oliver another chance and if she hadn’t liked his the first time around she sure as hell wasn’t going to like him now. At least she would have good reason now but that didn’t mean that Barry wanted to listen to her inevitable rant about how he was making a huge mistake. He had his own doubts, thanks; he didn’t need hers too.

Iris smiles, “hey,” she says, using the same weary tone that he had, “so um, about Oliver,” she says and Barry sighs. Here we go. “No no, nothing bad, well sort of bad, I mean I think you’re making a huge mistake- no Barry don’t go- but it’s your choice,” she says.

Barry frowns, “am I supposed to find that encouraging or comforting?” he asks because really, he was missing the point.

Iris sighs, “no, that was worded terribly. I had this huge speech in my head and it didn’t really translate,” she says, “but still. It occurs to me that when I told you that Eddy and I were dating you thought it was a terrible idea but you still supported my decision so that’s what I’m trying to do here even though I’m kind of failing,” she says.

Barry laughs, “yeah you kind of are but I need someone to talk to that isn’t Oliver because if I tell him I have my doubts his doubts will get worse and then he’ll _definitely_ do something stupid again so. Help a guy out?” he asks, walking over and throwing himself on his bed beside Iris.

“I’ll do my best, and for the record I totally told you he was secretly sensitive,” she tells him.

Barry wrinkles his nose, “oh this is not what you meant and you know it, you totally meant sensitive in a manic pixie dream guy kind of way.”

*

_Omg_

_I fucking hate this class_

_Fell asleep. As usual_

_Whole fucking class decides to prank me_

_Wrote on the board that it was 300 years later. And to run_

_For a minute I fucking believed I was 300 years in the future_

_But then I pulled out my phone_

_iPhone batteries don’t last that long_

Barry reads the flurry of texts from Oliver and bursts out laughing, causing Iris, Cisco, and Caitlin to look up from their food. He outlines Oliver’s texts and they, too, think Oliver’s plight is hilarious.

_You’re laughing aren’t you_

_Fucking Tommy is too._

_You guys suck_

Barry texts him back to tell him that he did not laugh, that was a pack of lies, but Oliver having realized the whole thing was fake because his phone wasn’t dead _was_ hilarious. Especially considering there were literally dozens of other things that would have indicated the board was lying. Like the suspiciousness of a message being left on a board for three hundred years, a lack of dust, the building being in working condition or you know. Humans not being able to live for three hundred plus years. But the _iPhone_ battery is what clued Oliver in.

_Well not all of us are fucking forensic detectives Barry_

_Who the fuck looks for dust_

_God damnit Tommy would have looked for dust_

_I’m mad at everyone_

He probably should have been annoyed with Oliver being an asshole, but the guy did think that he had somehow slept for three hundred years and his class left a weirdly ominous message. He figured everyone had bad days so he’d let Oliver slide this time. Also he laughed way too hard at poor Oliver freaking out so he kind of felt bad.

“Wow, I mean I know when I take naps I wake up mad and unsure of what year it is but I’ve never actually thought I was in another year. Well, except that time I fell asleep on New Year’s Eve and when I woke up it actually _was_ a different year but that’s different,” Cisco says. Barry felt Oliver’s pain, really, when he woke up from naps he was weepy and annoying, pretty much the same way he was hung over. If it were possible to avoid himself until he woke all the way up he would but sadly he could not exit his own body.

“Once I had a dream that earth switched places with mars somehow and we all had twenty four hours to live before we were going to freeze to death. It felt so real I had to look out the window to make sure it was fake,” Caitlin says, “that isn’t even _possible_. Sleepy me is not the smartest me.”

“One time Barry thought he was an ostrich,” Iris says, happily throwing him under the bus.

“It was one time and I was nine, you weren’t even sleepy when you believed that if you ate watermelon seeds you would grow a watermelon in your stomach. Human stomachs do not have the proper conditions to grow watermelons, Iris,” he says.

Iris rolls her eyes at him, “not all of us are nerds, Barry, some of us don’t know weird scientific facts off the tops of our heads,” she says, raising an eyebrow at him.

Cisco squints, “that’s actually just basic logic, Iris,” he says. Iris does not accept this even though she knew it was true and she switches the subject back to Oliver thinking he slept for three hundred years. When Barry asks Oliver how he could have even considered that possibility Oliver informs him that, and this was a quote, ‘business classes are just that fucking boring’.

*

When Barry gets a text from Oliver at twelve a.m telling him he should come over Barry is more than a little skeptical of Oliver’s motives. He figures he’d give the guy a chance to have other reasons for wanting Barry there besides a midnight booty call because he did have _some_ faith in Oliver not being an idiot.

Upon getting there Oliver meets him outside, smiling and holding skates, “I, ugh, brought you Thea’s but she has big feet so they should fit,” he says and hands him said skates.

He raises an eyebrow and Oliver ducks his head, “you seem like the ‘come look at the moon with me’ type and I thought midnight skating sounded cute and it’s a full moon so we can actually see,” he says and that was quite possibly the most adorable thing Barry had ever heard.

Barry laughs and smiles, “you are honestly the cutest thing ever,” he says. At least Oliver seemed to know that booty call= bad idea so he had already surpassed Barry’s expectations there.

Oliver looks relieved, “oh thank god, when I came up with this idea I was like ‘the fuck kind of gay ass shit is that, Oliver’ but Tommy assured me it was a good idea.”

“It’s a _great_ idea,” Barry assures him as they start walking wherever Oliver decided was a good skating area.

He was unsurprised to find that Oliver’s family had a pond hiding somewhere in their massive yard that was actually considerably large. How they managed to maintain it he had no idea but he supposed they were rich enough to hire other people. He was, however, surprised that Oliver was not very good at skating and Barry had to go save his ass before he ate ice. “You aren’t very good at this,” Barry says, letting Oliver cling to him while he glared at the ice.

“Who was the idiot who thought ‘hmm, let’s strap some fucking _blades_ to our feet and glide on that slippery shit over there’? That is clearly a bad idea,” Oliver says. He moves slightly and almost falls on his ass again, which causes him to cling harder to Barry.

Barry laughs and jostles Oliver, which results in him slipping again only this time he doesn’t manage to get control again and they both fall. “This was a horrible idea,” Oliver decides, frowning under Barry’s body weight.

He can’t help but laugh at Oliver’s frustration, “come on, get up and I’ll show you how to skate,” he says, picking himself up. If nothing else the trip to Oliver’s house was worth it based strictly on watching Oliver try and stand up on ice in a pair of skates. He does eventually manage though and Barry starts leading him around the pond with some success.

“How the hell are you skating _backwards_? This is like… some sort of witchcraft, I am fully convinced that you have sold your soul to the devil for this talent,” Oliver says and Barry blushes.

“It’s not talent so much as practice, Iris used to be in figure skating and I used to help her practice. Joe tried to stick me in hockey but honestly could you imagine me playing hockey?” he asks, wrinkling his nose.

Oliver snorts, “no, but I can imagine you as a figure skater, actually I prefer that mental image, the uniforms are skin tight,” he says.

Barry smacks Oliver’s arm, “you stop that,” he says and Oliver starts laughing, nearly losing his balance as he does so.

“Do you regret it?” Oliver asks sometime later as they walked back to the main house area.

“Regret what?” Barry asks, looking over to Oliver.

“Losing your virginity to me, I mean I know you said that you don’t really care but some people do so,” he trails off and shrugs.

“Did you lose your virginity to someone you cared about under the starry night with birds singing and suddenly you realized, ‘wow, this is like the best thing ever for some inexplicable reason!’ No? Well neither has anyone else. I mean I get the appeal, I’m a total romantic sap but literally every loss of virginity story I’ve heard has ranged from generally unpleasant sounding to the beginning of an HP Lovecraft story. Besides, people talk about sex likes it’s the most meaningful part of every relationship, and regardless of the obvious falseness of that statement the first time you have sex with someone shouldn’t be less meaningful than the tenth time, that’s just dumb. So no, I don’t regret it, mostly because I actually have a pretty awesome story to go with my virginity loss so I think I’m real winner here,” he says, grinning.

Oliver smiles, looking a mix between relieved and pleased. “So who had the HP Lovecraft story? I’m curious as to what that would entail,” he says.

“Cisco, and honestly you should get him to tell you the story because I couldn’t do it any justice. I kind of feel bad for the poor guy because literally every sexual encounter he had ever had has ended up some weird and convoluted story that parents would probably tell their kids as a cautionary tale to get them to avoid sex. It makes for great joke material though so Cisco isn’t overly upset with his inability to find a sex partner with compatible sex interests,” he says.  

Cisco was a weird one anyways, he took pleasure in his sexual experiences simply because they were so weird he topped everyone’s ‘well I had _this_ weird encounter’ party stories every time. He was pretty fun at parties for that and the bonus to his weird tales was that _someone_ always ended up witnessing it at some point so he had someone to confirm he wasn’t pulling shit out of his ass. Unfortunately Barry was a witness to three of those very strange stories and although he was all for kinks Cisco managed to get mixed up in some weird shit.

“I’m too curious to let that one go, I love Lovecraft, I need to know now,” Oliver says and Barry snorts, Oliver _would_ love Lovecraft. “What? Who doesn’t like some impending doom about the progression of science, the insignificance of humanity, and vague but still frightening monsters?” Oliver asks.

“People who aren’t racist?” Barry says, voice tilting up at the end.

“Valid point, but Lovecraft still wrote some good stuff,” he says. They bicker back and forth about Lovecraft all the way to the house and Barry decides he had won because Lovecraft put him to sleep. If he had to read horror Poe was where it was at, which Oliver disagreed with because Poe was pretentious.

*

 “Oh my god that’s _so_ cute!” Iris says, clapping and bouncing in her seat when Barry tells her about the midnight skating thing.

“It was actually kind of cute, he kept falling over and he was so frustrated but it was hilarious to watch,” Barry says.

Felicity sighs, “why do I always miss these things? I would pay actual dollars to see Oliver Queen fall on his ass in skates, you owe us pictures,” she tells him.

“I’ll make sure to sneak a few next time,” he tells her. He wanted some for his own purposes, frustrated Oliver trying to stand up on ice was just too cute not to be memorialized on film forever.

“So what are you guys talking about?” Laurel asks, pulling a chair out for herself and sitting down.

Barry outlines the current topic, which is about when Oliver and Tommy show up. “You said midnight ice skating was stupid when _I_ suggested it,” Laurel says angrily, crossing her arms and looking generally pissed off at Oliver’s existence.

“You got the idea from Laurel?” Barry asks, trying his best not to be judgy but it was a bit difficult in this situation.

“Oh my god,” Tommy and Felicity say in sync, ducking their heads and looking like they were about to die of second hand embarrassment on Oliver’s behalf.

Oliver looks generally confused, “what?” he asks, “we never did anything like that,” he says.

Laurel rolls her eyes, “because you said it was stupid,” she says.

Oliver, to his credit, does look genuinely confused as to where Laurel was getting this information so Barry held off on judging him for now, he’d leave judging him now to Iris. “When the hell was this?” he asks.

“When we first started dating and you decided going to get drunk at some party with Tommy was a better plan than mine, we argued about it the next day” she says.

Oliver frowns, “Laurel that was four years ago, you can’t possibly expect me to remember that, especially not if we argued about me getting drunk at a party the next day. That outlines basically every argument we ever had unless we were arguing about your father’s weird overprotectiveness that he thinks is fatherly love when really he’s just being an ass,” he says.

Laurel opens her mouth and then closes it, “I’m not even going to defend my dad because he’s being an asshole right now and he deserved that. But you got that idea from me, I will take all the credit for your cute date,” she says.

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Oliver says.

“That’s the way it works now,” Laurel says, obviously battling for the last word.

“That… no it doesn’t,” Oliver says.

Laurel probably would have responded but Tommy decides that was a good time to interrupt the ensuing petty argument, “okay great, Oliver didn’t get the idea from Laurel, and for the record Oliver did think the idea was dumb, I told him it wasn’t. Now food,” he says in a terrible attempt at conversation change.

Felicity’s phone goes off and she looks at it before rolling her eyes, “ugh, you say food and Ray calls. Now I’m not even hungry,” she says and Oliver extends his hand.

Felicity hands the phone over; god knows why because Barry thought this was a terrible idea considering how much Oliver hated the guy but okay. Felicity must be truly desperate. “Hello?” Oliver answers in a really rude tone. Felicity ducks her head, obviously coming to the same conclusion Barry had only now it was too late.

“Uh huh, yeah shut up I don’t care, stop calling Felicity… I’m her boyfriend not that that’s any of your business,” he snaps after a brief pause in which Palmer must have asked who he was.

Tommy joins Felicity in her second hand embarrassment once again and Laurel and Iris give Oliver ‘you’re fucking kidding’ looks. Barry just glares at him. Oliver notices but doesn’t break character, “yeah whatever, shove a thorny cock up your ass,” he says and hangs up, handing the phone back to Felicity. “What? Stop looking at me like that, if you can pretend to date Felicity so can I,” Oliver says and _fine_ , so maybe he had a point there.

“I… you… well that’s not wrong,” Barry says and Tommy sighs.

“You might have the worst luck I’ve ever seen,” Iris says, “in a matter of five minutes you managed to steal a date idea from your ex, and you told her it was stupid at the time, but it turned out here was no way you could have remembered that. Then you openly admit to cheating on Barry _again_ only you were just trying to get some asshole to stop calling your friend. How do you not have emotional whiplash?” Iris asks him.

Barry shrugs, “I’m pretty flexible,” he says.

“That’s true,” Oliver says, grinning.

“Well I was planning on eating but then I got that mental image,” Iris mumbles.


	12. Letting Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second last chapter! Well, last chapter technically, the next is going to be an epilogue lol. But y'all get the point.

This is what you get.  
This is who I am.  
Take me now or leave me  
Any way you can.  
Sometimes I trip and fall  
But I know where I stand.  
And if you're thinking about changing my direction,  
Don't mess with imperfection.

Imperfection, Saving Jane

“I’m not watching Waiting for Godot with you again, Oliver, you put that shit movie down,” Thea says, looking like she was ready to physically fight Oliver if he suggested that they should watch the movie he was holding.

“Ugh, and that is?” Barry asks, at least trying to give poor Oliver a chance.

“It-” Oliver starts but Thea cuts him off.

“These people sit there babbling by a tree waiting for some dude named Godot who never shows up because he’s an asshole. It doesn’t even make sense,” Thea says, taking in a deep breath to prepare for a rant and Oliver was doing the same.

Barry was _not_ going to get stuck in a sibling war, “ugh, sounds interesting?” he says uncomfortably, trying to break the tension.

“It’s theater of the absurd, Thea, that’s the _point_ ,” Oliver says, “I swear you are _so_ uncultured.”

“Oh I’m _uncultured_ now? You didn’t even care about any of this shit until you got abandoned on an island, before that you were fun,” she says.

“I wasn’t fun Thea, I was an immature brat who partied too much and had a cocaine addiction and now I have actual interests, you should be proud,” he says.

“How about Pirates of the Caribbean? Can’t go wrong with that,”  Barry suggests, clapping his hands together awkwardly.

“That’s a great movie,” Oliver and Thea say in sync.

“Awesome, that’s what we’re watching,” he says before the two can start arguing about some weird play that Oliver liked.

“You only like it because you think Johnny Depp is hot,” Oliver accuses and Barry rolls his eyes and decides whatever Thea says after that, Oliver deserved it.

“So what if I do? And by the way no one wastes more than two hours of their time on a story because they think an actor is hot, if that was the case I’d just google Johnny Depp in the role like a logical human,” Thea says.

“Not going to lie I came for Johnny Depp in guyliner, I stayed for the ghost pirates,” Barry says. Iris had been the one with an interest in the movie and he figured if nothing else he could stare at Johnny Depp for a while. But then _ghost pirates_ and Barry was interested. Nothing made a story better than ghost pirates.

Oliver looks done with Barry, which Barry thinks is rude, “you’re an idiot,” he says and Barry raises an eyebrow.

“What was that?” he asks in the same tone Laurel used whenever she wanted Tommy or Oliver to listen and to his surprise it works and Oliver looks like a kicked puppy.

“Nothing,” he mumbles, avoiding eye contact.

“Please teach me that trick,” Thea says, “if I can manage to use it on Oliver it’s bound to work on Roy.”

Barry shakes his head, “nah, Roy’s a rare breed, he has a brain so he thinks before he speaks,” he says.

“I guess I deserved that,” Oliver mumbles.

“Yes you did, so think before you speak, I have faith that you can figure it out,” Barry says.

“Too much faith,” Thea says, snickering.

“Don’t listen to her Oliver, she doesn’t like Waiting for Godot,” he says and Oliver smiles, shaking his head.

“You don’t even know what that is,” he says but it’s pretty clear he doesn’t care either.

“Lucky him,” Thea mumbles.

*

The fact that Roy managed to fall asleep in the middle of a movie about _ghost pirates_ is very telling and Barry had resigned to reassess Roy as a person. Obviously he sucked if _ghost pirates_ didn’t entertain him. God damn ghost pirates, who fell asleep during that? “Stop looking at Roy like he’s personally offended you,” Oliver whispers in his ear, surprising him enough that he jumps, sending the popcorn everywhere.

This wakes Roy up and he blinks rapidly in confusion as the popcorn lands, some of it on him. “Aw way to go Barry, waste the popcorn,” he says.

Thea snorts, “what’s it matter to you, you were asleep,” she points out.

“I was not asleep, I was resting my eyes,” he claims, earning an eye roll for Thea.

“Oliver does that too, like just admit you were sleeping, why is that so hard?” he asks to no one in particular.

“Because, I was just resting my eyes,” Roy says, already half asleep again.

“That isn’t a viable excuse when you snore,” Barry says as Roy starts snoring as if on cue.

“Is so,” Oliver says, taking up Roy’s defense now that he wasn’t going to defend himself.

“Men are idiots,” Thea decides and Oliver makes an offended noise.

“Don’t sound so offended, you’re seriously defending passing off sleep as ‘eye resting’ instead of just admitting you were asleep. Why is that so hard to do? Everyone with functioning eyes or ears knows you were asleep, there’s no sense in lying,” Barry points out.

Oliver sticks is nose in the air, “it’s not sleep,” he says, obviously prepared to fight both Barry and Thea on this.

Barry rolls his eyes, “oh my god this is like that time we had a two hour argument over whether or not the Pussycat Dolls said ‘groupies’ or ‘boobies’,” he says.

“They said ‘groupies’, I looked it up,” Oliver says and Barry gives him a look, “what? I wanted to make sure I was right,” he says.

“You’re a petty asshole, also did you make sure it wasn’t a clean version of the lyrics?” he asks and Oliver sighs deeply. “Ha, proof they said ‘boobies’,” Barry says even though that proved no such thing.

“They said ‘boobies’,” Thea confirms.

“You two need to stop bonding and ganging up on me,” Oliver mumbles, looking like a kicked puppy.

“Aww, don’t look so upset Oliver, it isn’t our fault you’re wrong,” Thea says, smiling at him. Oliver scowls in response.

*                                                   

“So I finally met this mysterious Ray Palmer everyone has been babbling about,” Laurel says, “honestly I  didn’t really get why Oliver hated him so much until I met the guy. Have you ever met someone with the personality of a wet sponge hitting the ground? That’s Ray Palmer,” she says and Barry laughs.

“Oh ouch. Poor Ray, I thought he was really annoying but I mean I’ve met me with a hangover so I figured I probably shouldn’t complain,” he says.

“Well Oliver insists that you’re adorable but he also spends way too much time talking about random mundane things you do. I really could not care less that you had a cooking day with Iris the other day, honestly, he didn’t need to proceed to talk about it for the next two hours. You should take him out or do some fun things with him so when he inevitably starts talking about you we might get a little variety,” she says.

“It is really that bad?” he asks because Felicity has told him the same thing at least three times. Sometimes she text him all the stuff Oliver was talking about at he was talking about it and honestly Barry had never been so tired of himself.

“Yes, Tommy is looking for new friends until Oliver manages to get past this ‘Barry is the only interesting thing in my life’ stage. We love him, well Tommy does, most of the time I kind of want to strangle him, but we do not deserve to suffer like this. At least when you’re around he talks about other stuff, mostly because you’re already there. I might have thought this was cute too, but Oliver never does anything halfassed when he actually decides to try so now I’m just annoyed, and I like you so Oliver better not ruin it for me,” she says.

Barry laughs, “I’m sure he’ll get over it,” he says. He hoped so because he’d rather not have all his friends get annoyed with him because Oliver didn’t shut up about him. Maybe he should have Oliver hang out with Iris more, he’s had the same issue with her; they could talk about him together.

“The saving grace to this whole situation is that you don’t think Oliver is the most interesting thing about your life so you actually talk about a variety of subjects, wow!” she says, sounding considerably done with Oliver’s inability to act like a normal human.

“It’s hard to think Oliver is the most interesting thing in my life when yesterday someone stuck a pair of shit stained underwear pretty much up my nose and told me to run tests on it at my co-op placement. I can assure you no matter how interesting Oliver gets he’s not quite _that_ interesting, which I’m happy about,” he says.

Laurel wrinkles her nose and laughs, “oh my god you poor thing, you’re the student my dad talks about aren’t you? The kid? They are such assholes to you, you should say something,” she says but she’s still laughing so Barry isn’t sure what message he’s supposed to be getting here.

“That’s alright, sometimes I switch the sugar with salt and watch as they all choke on their coffee, no one has caught on yet,” he says.

Laurel snorts, “oh you better hope they don’t, they’ve started an actual investigation because they’re tired of ruined coffee,” she says.

“They’re drinking coffee in a police station, the coffee was already ruined. And I know they’ve started an investigation, who do you think is ‘processing’ the evidence?” he asks and Laurel snorts.

“Oh I fear you now, you have an entire station of cops falling over themselves trying to figure out who is salting their coffees and they’re too stupid to think about the one guy they all treat like a child despite being competent at his job. I told dad they should stop that and now their coffees are suffering, when they all figure it out I’m going to tell him that I told him so,” she says.

“It’s kind of fun to watch” Barry says, laughing. He probably wouldn’t have done anything but the forensic guys made a bet with the cops that started a pranking streak and thus far the forensic guys were right, they were just better at pranking undetected. Well, Barry was, everyone else got caught but no one suspected the co-op student.

“Maybe I’ll salt Oliver’s coffee,” Laurel muses.

“Oliver doesn’t drink coffee, he’s a tea snob and trust me he’ll know just by looking at it, don’t think I haven’t tried,” Barry says. He wasn’t entirely sure how, exactly, Laurel didn’t know Oliver didn’t drink coffee but he supposes it could have been a knee jerk reaction. She and Tommy basically lived of coffee, if he drank that much he probably wouldn’t sleep for a year.

“Oliver’s a snob about everything, I pity you for having to deal with it but at least he doesn’t throw up so there’s that,” she says, wrinkling her nose. Yeah, he didn’t pity Laurel for having to deal with the party days either.

“Yesterday I got stuck watching Waiting for Godot and now I know why Thea was so willing to literally fight Oliver against watching it. I have never been so bored in my life and I spent a large majority of my childhood sitting in a police station, seriously Laurel, I was kind of hoping an asteroid would hit the earth just for the excitement.” Laurel laughs at him and he really doesn’t appreciate it because he _suffered_ and he didn’t find it amusing.

“Make sure Felicity isn’t around then, she likes the same crap, Tommy and I never let them choose the entertainment unless we actually intend on falling asleep,” she says. Yeah, didn’t he know, that was how he got stuck watching the damn play to begin with and somehow Felicity and Oliver were entertained. He figured if nothing else he could have made a drinking game, drink every time it was boring, but he didn’t really want to kill his liver. Laurel regards him for a few quite moments before she decides to ask whatever it was that had been on her mind all day. He liked Laurel well enough, and she liked him too considering he was the only other person she was friends with who also enjoyed wine more than they should, but they didn’t really hang out. “This is going to sound really weird but like… how are you so forgiving? I mean I know you’re basically a puppy but you’re just so… nice and stuff, how do you do that? Just let everything go? I mean some days I still kind of want to kill Oliver, and you… I don’t even know what you did but it’s impressive,” she says, looking genuinely impressed.

Barry shrugs, “a lot of people can hold anger really well and I get it, no one likes being hurt, but it’s just too much for me. I either learn to let it go or… or I don’t know because it’s never happened, it’s just too much energy for me to waste. I think sometimes people think that makes me naïve or stupid or something but that’s kind of dumb, I think, to suggest that because a person doesn’t feel like you that there must be something wrong with them. I don’t think it occurs to anyone that maybe holding on to anger forever is probably worse but whatever,” he says. People did it to Cisco too, he was always happy, and people thought that made him stupid. It didn’t and sometimes the bonded over it because they didn’t really know anyone else quite like them, people who needed the brightness to live. They didn’t do well when brooding.

Laurel shrugs, “you’re telling me, I mean I get it, Oliver fucked up huge, and yeah sometimes I’m still mad about it. I get that some people would never forgive him, that’s fine, but everyone keeps expecting me to be one of those people and just… at a certain point I’m tired. I just don’t know how to let go,” she says and that must take a lot. Laurel, from what Barry knew, was a very passionate person and once she latched on to something she didn’t much like letting go. It would make her a great lawyer but it didn’t really suit her well in her personal life.

“I don’t know either, people tell me I should hang on tighter so who knows,” he says, shrugging.

Laurel shakes her head, “you _do_ hang on, tightly, just not to negative stuff. You’re like this weird ray of sunshine on this super shitty planet; I can see why you and Oliver work so well. Honestly he would drain anyone else, the way he is now, he doesn’t know how to do anything emotionally and most people just wouldn’t know how to deal with the mess that he is. Nothing seems to stick to you though; you just let it all go and bring out the good stuff, you two are weirdly perfect for each other. I kind of thought he’d end up with Felicity but she’s like Barry Lite and Oliver needs all the help he can get because he’s basically an emotional baby,” she says.

It was kind of inappropriate to laugh but he does anyways, “Oliver totally is an emotional baby,” he says, “just don’t tell him that, he’ll cry,” he says and Laurel snorts and starts laughing.

“He would too, acting all growly and mopey and not realizing he was proving everyone’s point exactly. I’m not sure he sees the irony,” she says.

“He definitely doesn’t see the irony, I’ve asked and he got all mopey and stuff without realizing that he proved me right again,” he says. 

*

There was about a million and one things Oliver didn’t expect to have happened in his life but Barry now ranked number one. He was so bright where Oliver was dark and though he thought the ‘opposites attract’ thing was stupid it happened to be true here. Barry seemed to have every positive trait that he didn’t, and he had a lot of positive traits that Barry didn’t if Barry was to be believed. He had trouble with that still, it was hard to believe that he had anything Barry didn’t, but he trusted Barry enough to look and see if it was true. So far he had had positive results, Barry seemed to see all sorts of things Oliver didn’t see himself until he spent time looking for it.

He’d consider that maybe he was just making things up to match Barry’s words but the traits existed previously to Barry and he wasn’t a mind reader. He couldn’t really deny the truth of Barry’s words when they seemed to hold truth from before a time where Barry would have even known those things. It didn’t really make things easier per se, but it did help sometimes. He had thought they were close before he had gone off and stupidly cheated but in a somewhat ironic turn of events they had actually grown closer after. Looking back the intimacy they had before was kind of fickle at best, only there in the barest of senses, and now it ran considerably deeper. Far deeper than Oliver had considered possible for himself especially because he knew he held everyone at arm’s length, he always had, but somehow Barry managed to get him to see that wasn’t a good way of handling things.

Barry looks up from his spot curled under Oliver’s arm, “what are you thinking about?” he asks, smiling slightly.

Oliver smiles back, “you,” he answers and Barry surprises him by wrinkling his nose in annoyance.

“Please stop, everyone is getting annoyed of me because I’m all you ever talk about, I love you I do but you need some hobbies,” he says, “one’s that don’t involve me.”

“Well yesterday I changed my major to cultural studies and mom was surprisingly okay with it, Thea’s better with numbers and stuff anyways, always has been. Now everyone’s going to have to deal with me complaining about how boring Foucault is,” he says.

Barry laughs, “oh thank god you think Foucault is boring, you seem like the snobby type that would think being able to read Foucault without falling asleep makes you smart,” he says, looking relieved.

“I am offended Barry, please tell me what gave you that impression so I can never do it again. Foucault is so much better when literally anyone but Foucault explains Foucault,” he says.

“You’re a tea snob and you like theater of the absurd, face it Oliver, you’re one step away from thinking reading Foucault makes you superior to your fellow humans,” he says.

“I need to change. Everything.” He’s decided, this cannot stand. He couldn't do that to poor Barry.


	13. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Straight up this is a useless chapter of drabbles that take place in this AU that I found amusing but hadn't found a place for elsewhere. So yeah, this does nothing to contribute to the story it's just for fun, except for the last bit, that's just needless (translation: needed) fluff lol.

Flash forward and we’re taking on the world together,  
And there’s a drawer of my things at your place.  
You learn my secrets and you figure out why I’m guarded,  
You say we’ll never make my parents’ mistakes.

Mine, Taylor Swift

_One year later_

Oliver is laying on the ground of their new apartment with Barry laying half on top of him, the two of them smiling at the ceiling. “What should we do?” Oliver asks, wrapping his arm around Barry’s waist.

“Absolutely nothing, I’m feeling lazy,” he says, grinning.

Oliver snorts, “you didn’t even do anything,” he says, “Laurel too, I don’t even know how you two managed to look busy for two hours while everyone else did all the work.”

“We’re talented, also we did stuff, we just let you, Len, and Tommy do all the stuff we didn’t want to do,” he says.

“So basically everything,” Oliver says, rolling his eyes fondly at Barry.

“Basically. But keeping you and Len from trying to murder each other is hard work so I think I should get credit for that,” he says because it actually _was_ hard work. Oliver was like the queen, pun intended, of being a passive aggressive asshole and Len was just flat out mean when he wanted to be. The two weren’t fond of one another, Oliver because he still hadn’t gotten over that one time he kissed Len, and truthfully Len probably found it amusing to irritate Oliver. It didn’t help that Oliver was so easily irritated by all things Leonard Snart no matter how much Barry reassured him that he had no interest in Len, he never really did, he had just been looking for comfort in the wrong places.

“Well if he kept his mouth shut it wouldn’t be a problem,” Oliver says haughtily.

Barry flips over to face Oliver, “Ollie. I understand your frustration but that doesn’t mean you get to act like an ass,” he says.

“Snart starts it,” Oliver mumbles.

“Then you finish it, and not by punching him, I can see where you’re going with that. Do _not_ punch Len, Oliver,” he says, giving Oliver a judge-y look.

Oliver grins, “aww but it’d be _so_ fun,” he says, “and his face is so punchable.”

“ _Ollie_ ,” Barry says in a disapproving tone and Oliver gives him a pouty look, “oh stop that face, you’re too cute to resist.”

“Good,” Oliver says, pulling him in for a kiss.

*

“I think they might have turned each other gay,” Laurel says, gesturing to Sarah and Oliver, the latter of which was trying desperately to flee the scene. Barry had been a bit surprised when Laurel had mentioned inviting her sister to their house warming, well, apartment warming party but he figured the worst of what could have happened between the two was already instigated by Oliver. It turned out he should have anticipated far more awkwardness.  

“Technically they’re both bi but yeah, that’s weird. So uhh, what do you think of Nyssa?” Barry asks. She was… intense to say the least.

Laurel looks unimpressed, “I’d rather have a conversation with a loaf of bread because it would be more interesting,” she says, “but Sarah’s happy and I mostly don’t want her dead now so I guess I should be happy too.”

Barry laughs, “that shouldn’t be funny but honestly your salty attitude has become the highlight of my days I swear. And when you and Oliver are upset about the same things it’s even better because you two are so sassy together, Tommy and I agree,” he says. He wasn’t all that close to Tommy but they did bond over their respective love for Oliver and Laurel so there was that. Plus Iris and Tommy liked the same video games so at least Oliver’s friends and his got along for the most part.

“Well I like to think I had reason to be angry but we’ve all grown up and moved on so now I have to try and get along with Nyssa, which is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I mean we we’re all a little surprised she was dating a girl but whatever, no big deal, at least until we met her. Now we all struggle not to feel like she’s trying to murder us with her eyes, do you get that feeling?” Laurel asks and yes he did. He thought Oliver and Len were the masters of glaring but then he met Nyssa and murder face was like her go to facial expression.

“I’m like eighty percent sure that if looks could kill I would have been dead nine times before I hit the ground when she looked at me. Seriously, I have never met someone with such an intense murder face and her voice is so monotone I have no clue what she’s thinking. I mean she seems nice enough, and she obviously cares about Sarah, but she throws me off,” Barry says. Mostly because he had no idea if half of the comments she made were passive aggressive or jokes and only Sarah seemed to know the difference. He figured he’d just take his cues from her otherwise he was hopelessly lost on all interactions.

Laurel nods along, “right?” she says, “I’m glad Sarah seems to know what’s going on because no one else does, look at poor Oliver and Tommy flounder. She we put them out of their misery?” she asks.

Barry snorts, “you don’t want to put them out of their misery,” he says.

“Hell no but I figured maybe you were feeling nice today,” she says, “but since you aren’t we’re going to have fun watching and judging.”

“Oliver looks like he’s concentrating very hard on trying to take a shit,” Barry says and Laurel laughs so hard everyone, Nyssa included, turns to stare at them.  

*

Usually drunk Oliver was loud and annoying and Barry left him for Tommy to deal with but the night before was just too damn good not to tell everyone about. “Iris seriously, it was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen,” he says, laughing almost too hard for him to explain _why_ exactly he was laughing.

“Well alright, considering you usually end up annoyed with drunk Oliver I guess it must be good,” she says with a healthy amount of skepticism.

“It was so funny even Len laughed, hell, Hartley the Heartless laughed and he’s an ass,” he says, not overly fond of Len’s new boyfriend, “okay so I go to get Oliver off the side walk because poor Tommy was doing a terrible job and he was trying so hard. So I get there and by now Oliver has figured out what feet are and this dog wanders up. In Oliver’s defense he probably couldn’t see it but he’s like trying to call the dog over, but he thinks it’s actually a cat. We try to tell him it’s a dog but he’s not listening because Oliver is very stubborn, then the dog starts barking at him. He still refuses to believe that it’s not a cat, even though it’s barking at him, until it walks under a street light. Then he’s like ‘oh, maybe it is a dog’,” he says in his best Oliver voice, “like _maybe_ the thing that has been barking at you for five minutes is a dog?”

“I… okay?” Iris says and Barry is doubled over laughing his ass off. Iris was a terrible friend and absolutely did not appreciate drunk Oliver comedy.

“Oh come on, that’s hilarious,” he says, still recovering from laughing so hard.

“Did you tell Iris about the cat thing?” Oliver asks, appearing in the doorway to their living room looking generally upset and hungover.

“The dog thing,” Barry corrects, laughing. Oliver looks unimpressed, “come on, it was funny, like the Danny Devito thing,” he says.

Oliver at least cracks a smile at this, which was improvement because hungover Oliver was more unbearable than hungover Barry. “You told him about Danny Devito!” Iris yells in his ear and he squeaks loudly and hangs up.

“We need to move to another country,” he says in a panic.

*

Len and Oliver, as usual, were bickering back and forth and Tommy was now bonding with Barry over their irritation with the two. The situation became worse when Hartley joins in on the long suffering looks because there was not a situation in which Tommy and Barry should ever have anything in common with Hartley the Heartless. They didn’t deserve to suffer that way.

Then they see the dog, “nice cat,” Len says to the very confused owner while Oliver glares hard at him. The dog starts barking and Len looks Oliver dead in the eye, “still a cat,” he says.

Hartley sighs, “do you guys want shots because the only way I’m going to survive this is batshit wasted,” he says, mostly without the haughty and superior tone he usually used.

“Hell yeah,” Tommy and Barry say in sync.

*

He’s curled up next to Oliver on the couch, tucked into Oliver’s side. Iris says that they’re disgustingly cute and that’s why everyone has decided that they were to never be invited anywhere together for the next six months. He just thinks that they’re jealous of their awesomeness and everyone is upset that they could never compare but he lets them believe that it’s because he and Oliver were adorable. “So how was your day?” Oliver asks.

Barry laughs, “the cops finally figured out it was me salting the coffees,” he says.

Oliver raises an eyebrow, “how’d that go?” he asks.

“Pretty well actually but that’s because Laurel is an incredible lawyer and she dumped to my defense. She pointed out that I obviously must be good at my job if I was able to tamper with the evidence and send an entire station of cops in circles for a year without anyone catching on. She also pointed out that that’s what they get when they treat people like crap, and the forensic guys have basically elevated me to god status. They all want to know how I did it but honestly the cops just didn’t think I was capable, if they hadn’t underestimated me I never would have gotten away with it,” he says. Laurel’s father was pissed that the ‘kid’ had fooled him and it was great. “Honestly I kept it up all this time just to see how long it would take to get caught, I half expected to be fired when found out but like I said, Laurel’s good.”

Oliver snickers, “well Laurel is pretty pissed at her father at the moment so she’d pretty much take any chance to tear a few strips off him. Plus it was the cops that started the prank war, it’s their fault they didn’t know what they were getting into,” Oliver says.

“Well, I think I renewed that fight and all eyes are going to be on me so,” he says, “we’ll see how this pans out. They’ve already banned me from the coffee station.”

“They banned you from the coffee station? As if I’d let you drink that shit, as if you’d _willingly_ drink that shit even if I didn’t buy you coffee every morning,” Oliver says.

Barry grins up at Oliver, “yes, thank you from saving me from the terrible station coffee. I’d die without you,” he says, only half kidding. After a year of messing with the sugar and covering the evidence up he was well aware of the status of those coffee pots and he wanted nothing to do with them.

Oliver smiles, “I’m sure you’d do fine without me,” he says.

“Not if I had to drink station coffee, I’m pretty sure the coffee pots were originally clear and now they’re… not,” he says and Oliver wrinkles his nose.

“Some punishment banning you from that will be,” he says.

“Right? Like have none of them noticed that I don’t drink station coffee? My presence there was always suspicious and honestly Laurel doesn’t go near station coffee, if Laurel won’t drink it there is something very wrong,” he says. Laurel would drink just about anything, including the coffee at her own work place and that was just gross.

“Dumb cops,” Oliver says, “never was fond of Laurel’s father. I mean he had reason to hate me, I was an asshole, but even if I wasn’t he still would have been an ass, as proven by poor Tommy,” he says. Yeah, poor Tommy, who was still inexplicably disliked by Laurel’s father even though he had done nothing wrong to him or Laurel.

“Yeah, poor thing. I wonder how the wedding’s going to go if Lance doesn’t stop being a dickhead to the poor guy,” he says.

Oliver frowns, “Tommy told you he was going to ask Laurel to marry him?” he asks.

Barry snorts, “no, Laurel found the ring and that combined with you and Tommy being weird led her to a pretty obvious conclusion. Tell Tommy not to do it on a beach, Laurel doesn’t like getting sand all over everything she owns, she compared it to herpes,” Barry says, figuring he’d help a guy out.

Poor Oliver looks flabbergasted, “I… she… oh come on, Tommy and I were careful,” he says indignantly.

“No, you guys were about as subtle as a sting ray on a coffee table,” he says, “but you tried.”

“Well I think that we did just fine,” he says, grinning at Barry like he knew something Barry didn’t.

“We aren’t idiots, Oliver, Laurel and I figured out you were planning on proposing too. Like I said, as subtle as a sting ray on a coffee table,” he says, grinning at Oliver’s upset grumpy face.

“It was supposed to be a surprise,” he mumbles.

“I was surprised when I found out, that’s kind of the same,” Barry says in a sad attempt at comforting Oliver.

“It is not,” he says grumpily before getting up and walking off.

“Aww come on Ollie, I’m a forensic analyst and Laurel’s a lawyer, well, in training, but following the evidence is what we do,” he calls after him.

Oliver reappears a few minutes later and tosses a box in Barry’s general direction. “Oh my god, is this your proposal?” Barry asks, laughing at the absurdity of the situation.

“Well you and Laurel had to go off and ruin my plans so this is what you get for snooping,” Oliver says and Barry shakes his head. How very Oliver.

“What were your plans anyways?” he asks.

Oliver blinks in surprise for a second before jumping at Barry, trying to steal the box back but Barry’s too fast for him and he’s across the room before Oliver can even gather his bearings. “No take-backs!” Barry scolds, “so what were your plans?” he asks.

Oliver pokes his head over the top of the couch, looking very much like an annoyed cat. “I was _going_ to recreate our first real date, you know, he midnight skating one but then you ruined my plans and then it turned out _I_ ruined my plans,” he says grumpily.

“Oh my god that’s so cute!” Barry says, walking over to Oliver, “the only thing cuter than midnight skating as a first date is a midnight skating proposal,” he says, kissing the top of Oliver’s head, half to see if he could get away with it. He did.

“The best part about it was that I didn’t have to come up with some other cute date idea,” Oliver says enthusiastically, smiling at Barry.

“ _Oliver_ ,” Barry says, swatting at him, “you’re terrible.”

“Is that a ‘yes’?” Oliver asks, actually looking kind of nervous now.

“Obviously, Ollie,” he says and Oliver pulls him over the back of the couch for a kiss.                

"Good boy," Oliver says, kissing him again and Barry was about eighty percent sure if exploding of happiness was a thing it probably would have just happened. 

**Author's Note:**

> [My writing Tumblr](https://tenspencerriedplease.tumblr.com/)


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